This is my world, Earthland
by Callidus-Neuro
Summary: What if Lucy was a powerful, dimension hopping wizard? Like how everything starts, Lucy meets Natsu and Happy at Hargeon town. But when he takes her to the guild, she already has a guild mark. It turns out that she joined Fairy Tail in a different world! But that isn't all. Lucy hides a darker secret, a one she doesn't want anyone to know. Lucy x Erza endgame. YURI
1. Everything starts here

**Hello everyone! I'm new to the Fairy Tail fandom and I'm really happy to write a fanfiction for such a great fandom. Honestly, they say the Big Three (Naruto, Bleach, One piece) but I honestly prefer Fairy Tail above all three of them. And yes, I did watch the other three as well. **

**This is something I came up with when I thought that Lucy deserves way more coolness and credit than she gets in canon. And also, I'm a sucker for Yuri so... This fic will loosely follow canon but it will be considerably different...I think. I haven't planned it that much. **

**This may seem confusing at the beginning but I promise that everything will be explained all in due time. **

**WARNING: This is a Lucy x Erza fic so please back away if you're not interested. **

* * *

"This is Earthland. It looks a lot like our last world doesn't it?" A blonde girl commented, her calculating brown eyes taking in her surroundings. She looked to be around 17 years old. She wore a pair of black combat trousers, a dark blue t shirt with 'Happiness!' written on it and a long sleeveless coat that was left unbuttoned. She wore a pair of crimson converse and had a slim headphone placed over her ears.

"Lucy, this doesn't look anything like our last world. Our last world was mostly dark and depressing, remember?" A silver haired girl who was roughly the size of a small hand replied. The girl wore the same clothes as Lucy except without the headphone and the coat. And the clothes were tiny to suit her body size. The miniature girl then giggled, her hazel eyes twinkling with mirth as she flew over to directly hover in front of Lucy's face. "The old age must be getting to your memory, _Lucy-obaasan_."

Lucy plucked the girl out of the air by her collar and placed the girl gently on her shoulder.

"I'm only 17, Ria. And I didn't mind the dark. The sunlight irritates my eyes."

Ria pouted and folded her arms. "Mou, you're so boring to tease! You never react to my insults Lucy. What's the fun in that?" Lucy's quirked her lips into a small smile and remained silent. They walked through the streets of Hargeon town, taking in the beautiful scenery and the hustle of merry people chatting. All in all, it was a peaceful atmosphere that Lucy could definitely get used to. Ria had fallen asleep few minutes ago so Lucy had tucked Ria into her breast pocket. She was heading in the direction of the Hargeon station when she heard two excited girls exclaiming that the famous wizard 'Mr Salamander' was in town. Her eyes widened slightly in recognition. _Could it be…_

She quickly chased after the girls; her mind racing at the prospect that she would meet her friend once again although he probably wouldn't have met her yet in this world. The girls Lucy was chasing lead her to a large crowd gathered in front of a majestic building. She pushed through the crowd to see the figure standing in the middle only to find a strange blue haired man posing and basking in the fangirls' screams. Lucy immediately noticed the rings on his finger and deduced that he was probably controlling the crowd with one of them. Mostly likely a charm spell. She inwardly scoffed at the man who was using her friend's alias. _I don't have time for this. _

Just as she was about the leave, a pinked haired guy pushed through the crowd, shouting the name 'Igneel'. Lucy froze in her tracks as a small grin took over her face. _Natsu-san! And Happy-san as well. I missed them so much. _

Natsu tilted his head with a frown as he looked at the blue haired guy. "Who the hell are you?" Lucy watched as a crowd of furious women proceeded to kick and trample over Natsu. This happened once again when he refused to accept the fake Salamander's signature. Once the crowd was gone, Lucy approached Natsu who sat dejectedly on the cold stone ground. She offered him a hand and smiled softly when he looked up.

"Hi. I'm Lucy," She offered. Natsu took her hand and pulled himself up, dusting off any visible dirt.

"I'm Natsu Dragneel. And this is my friend Happy," he said. Lucy smiled as Happy did a little twirl in the air, shouting something about fish. She was tempted to say 'I know' but refrained because that would just cause them to be suspicious of her. Before she could say anything though, a long growl interrupted their conversation.

"…want to get some food? It'll be on me," Lucy said. Immediately, she was tackled by Natsu and Happy who had tears in their eyes.

"I'm so hungry, I could die!" Natsu exclaimed.

Happy chirped in, "Aye!"

"So, are you wizards?" Lucy asked, evading her head from the onslaught of bones and bits of food. Natsu was stuffing himself with at least six chicken legs at the same time while Happy was content with his plate of fish.

"Yeh, weer in a guild 'alled Faiweey Tail," Natsu slurred, his mouth still full of chicken meat. Happy added an enthusiastic 'Aye!' before turning his attention back to his fish. Lucy smiled to herself. _These two never change. I'm so glad they're exactly the same in Earthland. _

Lucy decided to play along, "Heh…you're in Fairy Tail? I hear that you guys always cause trouble in your missions."

Natsu scowled, "We always finish our jobs, even if it means destroying a house or two."

Lucy nodded, "Well said. But about Fairy Tail…you see, I'm a wizard too and I would like you to take me to your guild. Would that be okay?"

Natus paused before grinning widely. "Sure thing, since you were nice enough to buy us food. We were heading back to the guild anyway now that we know Salamander isn't Igneel."

"Right. While you finish eating your food, I'll be waiting outside," Lucy said and placed some notes on the table before walking out of the restaurant. She entered a nearby shop and bought a copy of Sorcerer Weekly. She settled on a bench and flipped the magazine open. Inside included gossip on certain guilds as well as interviews with some guild masters. There was also an article about how a member of Fairy Tail had destroyed seven homes and had wiped out Devon Bandit Clan. From reading the article, Lucy safely deduced that the member was none other than Natsu. Towards the back were full page pictures of Mirajane in a swimsuit. Lucy was proud that she only drooled for five seconds before she moved on.

"Fairy Tail is the same as always. I'm glad…" Lucy muttered. She then sighed as she felt the presence of the man from before. "Come out," she said, without taking her eyes off from her magazine. The man came out from the bush he was hiding from.

"As I expected, you are a mage and quite a sharp one at that. I heard that you want to join Fairy Tail. I can recommend you to our master as long as you come with me to attend my party. How about it? It's a win-win situation."

"No," Lucy said immediately, since she knew already that the guy was bluffing. The man narrowed his eyes. Before he could do anything, Lucy shot out of her seat, grabbed him by his neck and teleported him to the middle of the sea. She knew that he would be just fine and made sure that it would not kill him. Just then, Natsu and Happy exited from the restaurant, Natsu patting his belly in satisfaction.

"Ah, that definitely hit the spot. Thanks Lucy! Now that I've eaten, I'm all revved up," he said, igniting himself on fire. He turned to Lucy with a grin. "Let's go to Fairy Tail, Lucy, Happy!"

"Aye sir!"

"I won't let you!" shouted a familiar voice. Lucy sighed. _What a persistent man. I think I'll let Natsu-san handle this one. _

The fake 'Salamander' stood in front of them, his clothes soaked and his hair matted to his face. He had a furious expression on his face. "How dare you, you wench! You're not getting out of this alive! Prominence whip!"

With a wave of his hands, dark pink tendrils of light shot out from a magic circle and headed towards Lucy. She dodged each one of them with ease and Natsu did the same. The light crashed into houses behind and set some on fire. Natsu scowled.

"I don't know what's going on but I won't just let you go after you tried to hurt my friends!" he said, and breathed in the fire from the houses. The fake Salamander paled at the display. "Fire Dragon roar!" A big wave of flame came out from his hands and engulfed the fake Salamander completely. In the process, a few more houses were set on fire. Looking at the destruction he had caused once again, Natsu grabbed Lucy and sped away to the station. "Come on! We're going to Fairy Tail now!"

"By train?" Lucy asked with a small smirk, knowing that Natsu was weak with transportations. Just as she had expected, Natsu's pace faltered and he sheepishly scratched his cheek.

"Um…Happy, could you take us there?"

Happy looked appalled at the suggestion. "That's impossible, Natsu! I can only carry one of you and it too far away. We'll have to take the train back to Magnolia." At this, Natsu deflated. Lucy hid a smile.

"It's okay. I can teleport all of us there," Lucy spoke up, feeling a little sorry for Natsu.

Natsu and Happy looked at her in surprise. "You can do that?" the pink haired boy asked. Lucy nodded and grabbed them in each hand.

"Let's go!"

The world blurred for a second and when their visions settled once again, they were in the town of Magnolia, with Fairy Tail only few hundreds of meters away in the distance. Lucy took a moment to simply stare at the building and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her. _Damn, even the building is a carbon copy. _Soon enough, Natsu snapped out of his stunned state, grabbed her arm and pulled her towards Fairy Tail's headquarters. When they arrived, the boy pushed open the doors with a loud, energetic greeting.

"I'm back!" he shouted. Lucy stood still as she watched everyone greet Natsu back with equal vigor.

"Who's that young lady you brought back?" a girl with white hair asked. She seemed to be the barmaid, from looking at how she was wiping a glass behind the counter.

"She asked me to take her here. I'm not really sure why though," Natsu replied.

"Oi, oi. What if she's a spy from a rival guild, you flame-brain!" shouted a dark haired boy. He only wore his underwear and was giving Natsu a glare. Natsu glared back, just as intense.

"You wanna have a go at me, you ice-breath? Bring it on!"

What next ensued could only be described as a messy tangle of limbs with fire and ice added into the mix. The spectators seemed unfazed by this occurrence and simply ignored the two while some cheered them on with a jolly laugh. Lucy inwardly rolled her eyes fondly. _Looks like Natsu and Gray just never get along, no matter which world. _She approached the white haired girl, Mirajane and stuck out her right hand.

"I would like to officially join this guild," Lucy said. Mirajane looked at her in confusion.

"What do you mean 'officially'?" she then glanced at the back of Lucy's hand that was offered. Mirajane almost dropped her glass she was holding and stared at Lucy in shock. Etched onto the back of the blonde's hand was the Fairy Tail's mark in silver.

"You're…already in this guild? But I don't have any record of you joining. Who exactly are you?" Mirajane asked, her voiced raised slightly. This drew the attention of everyone in the guild. Even Natsu and Gray broke apart to stare at her with solemn expressions. Just then Lucy's breast pocket rustled and Ria popped her head out with a sleepy expression.

"What's going on? Did you get into trouble again Lucy?" Ria mumbled. This was followed by a deafening silence. Then, chaos ensued.

"A tiny girl?!"

"What the hell is that? A doll?"

"Is that a human girl? How is this possible?"

"A flying cat and now a girl the size of a child's hand. I need more alcohol."

Lucy sighed. She had predicted this would happen but she still dreaded having to explain why she already had the guild's mark. Not to mention that judging from everyone's reactions, Earthland didn't have any Elflings.

"Quiet!" Lucy turned to see where the shout had come from. Everyone froze and turned their heads to the counter where a small old man stood, holding a long stick. He levelled a stern gaze at Lucy. "You will explain everything. Until I have confirmed that you are not here to bring harm to my children, I will not allow you to leave."

Lucy nodded. She looked down at Ria who now seemed to be wide awake and alert. _Good, I need Ria to help me explain. Otherwise they might take me for a nutjob._

"I'll explain why I have the guild mark already but I'm not going to include all the details. There are some things I'd rather not talk about ."

Master Makarov nodded. He seemed to understand Lucy's reason. She took a deep breath.

"It's your choice to believe me or not but what I'm about to tell you is the truth. The reason I have the guild mark already is because I joined the Fairy Tail in another world." Lucy let this information sink in. Surprisingly, no one made any sound of protest and the Master simply nodded for her to continue her story. Lucy closed her eyes as she remembered the day her life had taken a drastic change.

* * *

_I was five years old when my mother died of a weak body. My young self was thrown into despair and grief and everything in the world seemed so sad. My father grew distant and buried himself with work each day and he hardly ever came out of his study. I grew a fondness for books because I was able to pretend that I was in another world where I was the princess who got to live happily ever after with her prince. One day, I ventured into the forbidden part of my father's library because I had run out of books to read. I searched the shelves for an interesting book but found that all the books were too hard for me to understand. I was about to leave when the book at the very end of the shelf started glowing faintly. _

_I heard a soft whisper in my head. It said to me, "Come, young child of Heartfilia. You are the chosen one. You will open this book that your ancestors were not worthy of opening. Hurry, I have waited centuries to fulfil the promise I have made to Kein Heartfilia. I recognise your power and I deem you worthy to fuse with me. Together, we will be the most powerful force in the world!" _

_My body seemed to move on its own. I cried inside my head. I was scared; I was terrified of this female voice whispering to me. My hand raised and took the book off the shelf. I saw myself opening up the book and then I only remember bright, silver light and excruciating pain. I felt my body going through every possible temperature. One moment, I was writhing with the searing hotness and the next I was almost paralyzed with chill. I felt as if pins were prickling all over my body and spots danced in front of my eyes until finally, pure silver washed over my vision and everything came to a stop. I lay there panting and shaking and all the while, the voice continued its whisper. _

_When the shaking stopped, I felt an indescribable power running through my blood. My body practically hummed with energy and I noticed that I was emitting a silver glow. I wanted to shout for my daddy, for anyone but the voice whispered to me again. "Shhh… No need to be afraid, young child. You will learn to control your powers all in due time. For now, rest."_

_As soon as the voice stopped talking, my vision turned black and I fell unconscious. _

_When I woke up, I found myself in my bedroom, tucked into my bed. Sitting next to the bed was one of the house maids, Lizzy. She was like an older sister to me and always went out of her way to take care of me. She told me that she had found me unconscious in the forbidden library with sweat running down my face. I looked at my hands and realized that the silver glow was gone and I remember thinking, maybe it was a dream. _

_But it wasn't a dream. As soon as Lizzy left, I started glowing again. This time however, I didn't feel any fear. It was as if a wave of calmness had washed over me completely. _

_I won't go into too much detail from this point on but the important fact is that I learned to use the power to my advantage. I was able to somewhat tap into the seemingly endless power residing inside and I no longer feared the voice. In fact, I warmed up to the voice inside my head because she was warm and nice to me and I considered her to be my only friend in the huge mansion. _

_My life continued as before except now I wasn't as lonely as I was before. I still loved my father and tried to get him to notice me. One day, I made a simple lunch for him and entered his study. I expected to see him working behind his desk but instead, I saw shards of glass scattered around my father's desk and my father slumped on it lifelessly. I saw blood trickling from his mouth and I saw a bulky man pulling his sword out of my father's dead body. I dropped the tray of food I was holding, drawing the attention of the man. _

_From this point, I don't remember much. All I remember is me screaming and silver taking over my vision. I felt something cracking and I soon fell unconscious. When I came to, I was once again lying in my bedroom but this time, both my mother and father were standing next to the bed. When I sat up, they hugged me and cried tears of joy, saying that they had thought I was dead. I didn't know what was happening but I knew for sure that it wasn't a dream or a hallucination. It felt too real for that. _

_I asked the voice in my head that I named Shari. Shari remained silent before chuckling and she told me that she had never expected this to happen. She told me that I was in a different world. _

_Once again, I'm going to leave out the details and just say that: yes, I was in a different world. The world was eerily similar to this world almost to the point of being a carbon copy but it had subtle differences. For example, my mother was completely healthy and we were poor. After a year of living with my parents, I couldn't stand the guilt and told them the truth. They surprisingly didn't deny it or call me crazy. They said that they knew I wasn't their real child but wanted to pretend. I bid them goodbye and travelled around until I came across a rumour of Fairy Tail and how it was the strongest guild in Fiore. I then joined your guild…_

* * *

"…and that's the reason why I already have the guild mark," Lucy finished. She waited for them the call her crazy and insane but everyone remained silent. Master Makarov looked her in the eyes for a long time.

Then, without a warning, he announced, "I believe you." Lucy's eyes widened but she soon settled into a small smile.

"I should have known better than to assume the worst, Makarov-san. You always were a good judge of character," Lucy said. Ria flew out of Lucy's pocket to cheer. Makarov squinted at the miniature girl.

"I do have some questions though. First, how did you get back to Earthland and who is that girl? I've never seen anything like her before," said the Master. The rest of Fairy Tail murmured in mutual confusion.

"It took me many tries but eventually, I was able to control when and which world I go to. After what happened to Fairy Tail back in the other world, I decided to come back to my original world to see everyone again. That alone took me four years and here I am now. As for this girl, she's called Ria and she's part of a species in the other world called Elflings. I saved her on a mission and we became close friends ever since."

Makarov took another moment to study Lucy. "I see," he then turned to the rest of the guild and shouted, "everyone! Lucy and Ria are now officially part of this guild and therefore part of our family. Let's throw a welcome party for them!"

There was a loud shout of agreement and soon the guild was full of chatter once more. A few guild members approached Lucy to ask more questions and she did her best to answer them. She got Mirajane to stamp a new guild mark on her right hand after erasing the old one as a sign of a fresh start. Ria also erased her old guild mark from her left cheek and got a new one in silver. The mark was smaller to fit Ria's size. Lucy smiled as she took a sip of her beverage. For the first time in ages, Lucy felt at home. _This is where I belong. _

Lucy surveyed the area and frowned when she couldn't see the person she was looking for. She turned to Mirajane. "Mirajane-san."

Mirajane gave Lucy a radiant smile. "Yes? What is it, Lucy?"

Lucy fidgeted slightly under her gaze. "Um…would you know where Erza-san is?" she hoped that she didn't sound like some stalker. Ria giggled from her place and Lucy levelled her with a small glare.

"I believe she's on a mission in another town. Do you need anything from her?" Mirajane asked.

Lucy blushed. "Ah, no. I was just wondering where she was."

Mirajane smiled, with a hint of mischief. "Were you perhaps close with Erza in the other world?" This question caught Lucy off guard and only made her blush worse.

"Not only were they close, Lucy has a huge cru-_Mpfff" _Ria started but her voice got muffled when Lucy grabbed her stuffed her in her pocket.

"Um…you could say that," Lucy said but paused. She then decided that she might as well tell the truth. "Actually, I kind of have a sort of crush on Erza-san but please don't tell her. I'll tell everyone myself."

At this, the white haired girl seemed a bit surprised, as if she wasn't expecting Lucy to say what she did. Lucy quickly followed this with, "I hope this doesn't bother you, Mirajane-san."

Mirajane shook her head and smile at Lucy kindly. "No it doesn't. I was just a bit caught off guard. And I'm pretty sure everyone else in the guild wouldn't mind. If the Fairy Tail in the other world is anything like the one in this world, you'll know that everyone is very kind and understanding. We're You're now part of our family so please don't hesitate to tell us anything."

Lucy smiled in gratification. "Thank you. I will tell Erza-san herself soon enough." Ria popped out from her pocket with a huff.

"That's wasn't very nice of you, Lucy. I almost chocked back there," Ria said with her arms crossed.

"That's what you get for almost revealing very confidential information I trusted you with," Lucy replied. Ria rolled her eyes.

"It's hardly confidential, Lucy. A blind goat can see your super crush on Erza from a mile away."

"It's not that obvious," Lucy muttered.

"Which is why everyone in the guild back in my world realized straight away without you telling them?" Ria questioned sceptically. Before Lucy could say anything back, Mirajane interrupted them with a giggle.

"You two argue like a married couple," Mirajane commented. Lucy almost spat out her drink. Just then, Natsu came along with Happy and plopped onto the seat next to hers.

"Man, Lucy. That was one hell of a story there. Almost makes my Dragon Slayer heritage seem normal," Natsu said. Lucy sent him a wry grin.

"That's hardly a good thing, Natsu-san."

Natsu shrugged, and ordered five plates of food. Lucy watched as he scoffed them down in record time and stood up, looking satisfied. He gave Lucy a smile and offered his hand.

"Let's go on a mission together, Lucy!" Lucy took the offered hand and followed him to the request board. There were many different requests, ranging from finding a lost cat to catching a band of thieves. One of them caught her eyes in particular. It was a strange request to take away an old jar from the client's house and destroy it. The weird thing was that they requested only teenagers around the age of eighteen and the reward was 1,000,000 jewels for something so simple. Lucy snatched the sheet off the request board and went to Mirajane who noted it down. Natsu and Happy followed, reading the request Lucy had picked.

"Why did you choose this one Lucy?" Ria asked.

"What does it matter? It's an easy job with a large reward. Although I wish it involves beating someone up but oh well," Natsu remarked. Happy nodded.

"Aye! Our food expenses are running out."

Lucy ignored the two of them who were in their own world, dreaming about food and in Happy's case, fish. She took one final glance at the request paper.

"Something about this request just bugs me. I have a feeling that this isn't such a simple mission but that there's something bigger behind it. I smell evil but I hope I'm just being paranoid," Lucy said. Ria looked concerned, knowing that Lucy was right about things like this most of the time. They soon arrived at their destination. The client's house was shabby and small, not something that indicated that the owner could afford to pay 1,000,000 jewels for a simple take-away-and-destroy job. _This is just getting more suspicious. _

They knocked on the door and were greeted by a boy around their age. He wore decent clothing and seemed relieved when he saw their guild marks. _Too relieved, _Lucy thought to herself.

"Hi, come in. You must be here to do the job I requested." The boy led them to the living room where there was a small table and two old looking chairs and a bookshelf. "Please take a seat while I get the jar. By the way, my name's Greg."

Natsu took a seat and leaned his head on his hand, looking incredibly bored. Lucy didn't sit down but explored the living room to see if there was anything out of place. She soon stumbled upon a dusty picture of a smiling family standing in front of a lovely mansion. The parents were standing behind two young boys and one of them strongly resembled their client Greg. Lucy beckoned Natsu over.

"Natsu-san, take a look at this. Isn't this suspicious?" Lucy asked. Natsu stared at the picture intensely.

"I don't get it," he said. Lucy sighed.

"Look at the house in the background. And look at the clothes they're wearing. No matter how you look at it, our client is from a rich family. So why is he living in a shabby place like this all on his own despite being still young?"

Natsu scratched his head. "Now that you mention it, it does seem suspicious. And I've smelt something weird ever since I came in. But it's kind of mixed with that Greg's scent so I'm not sure what it is."

Just then, sounds of footstep came from outside the door. Lucy and Natsu quickly moved away from the picture and sat down on the chairs. Soon Greg walked in holding an old looking jar that seemed to be tightly sealed. He handed it over to Natsu who peered at it curiously.

"This is the jar. I would like you to take it and destroy it somewhere far away. I think there's a curse attached to that jar so I'd rather you don't leave any trace of it. Here are your 1,000,000 jewels," Greg said, handing over a sack filled with jewels.

"Is that really all you want us to do?" Lucy asked, watching Greg's body language carefully. The guy seemed anxious, judging from the way he was constantly tapping his feet. Greg nodded resolutely. Lucy shrugged, "Okay."

They left Greg's house with the jar and travelled to a secluded area in the town quite a distance away.

"Alright, let's break this thing!" Natsu said, igniting his fit with fire. Lucy held out her hand and snatched the jar away from the boy.

"Don't break it Natsu-san. This jar is very important evidence," Lucy said but then corrected herself, "rather, what's inside the jar is."

"Did you figure everything out, Lucy?" Ria asked excitedly. The girl really loved solving puzzles and unveiling secrets.

"What's going on?" Happy asked. Natsu looked unusually serious as he paid full attention to Lucy.

Lucy opened the lid of the jar and showed the contents of the jar. Inside was a pile of ashy powder. Natsu took a sniff of the powder and seemed to think for a while before his eyes widened with realization. Lucy nodded grimly.

"Natsu-san, what you're thinking is exactly the truth. This powder isn't just any powder. This is the remains of a human body when incinerated. Most likely, Greg killed his older brother, burnt him to a pile of ash and gathered the remained into this jar."

Happy looked stricken and looked at the jar with a horrified face. "It is true, Natsu?"

Natsu nodded. "Yeah. The weird thing I smelt when I entered the house is probably this. It smells similar to Greg's scent so that's why I couldn't identify what it was. But why would Greg kill his brother?"

"Probably because of inheritance problems. Judging from the picture, Greg is from a rich family and most likely got kicked out due to some reason or other. I'm guessing that his parents have recently died and he killed his older brother to receive the inheritance as the only remaining son. The reason he wanted teenagers around his age is so that he wouldn't draw any unwanted attention from his neighbours by having a middle aged person coming around to his house."

"Looks like you've found out what you shouldn't have," a voice suddenly interrupted. They turned to find Greg standing behind them, holding a long metal pole with a crazy look on his face. "Heh, heh. Now that you know, I can't let you live."

Greg lunged forward with a wild swing of his metal pole. Lucy jumped to avoid the blow and delivered a swift kick to Greg's face before landing, sending him stumbling back. Natsu took this time to light his fist on fire and immediately punched Greg's gut, causing him to fly black and fall unconscious.

"That was too easy," Natsu muttered disappointedly. Lucy agreed but only on the inside.

"In any case, we should take this guy to the council and leave the rest to them," Lucy suggested. Natsu hauled Greg over his shoulder and Happy carried the jar.

Ria perched on Lucy's shoulder and gave a thumbs-up. "I think this is a job well done."

Lucy gave the girl a soft smile. "I couldn't have said it any better."

* * *

_Dear mother in heaven, _

_I am doing well. As I have mentioned in my previous letter, I am finally back in Earthland. I have already visited your grave yesterday. I hope that the flowers are to your liking. However, on a different note, I have joined the Earthland's Fairy Tail and I was pleasantly surprised to find that everyone is as warm and kind as they were in the other world. Natsu-san is just as reckless and hot-blooded as ever, Gray-san still strips randomly and Mirajane-san is really understanding. Not to mention that Master Makarov is still short and has next to no hair. I hope that I will meet the Earthland's Erza-san soon and I really hope that she is also the same kind beautiful person I just know she is. I have rented a room in Fairy Hills and I've heard that Erza-san and many of my other female guild mates live there as well. I'm afraid this is it for now. Please take care. _

_With love, Lucy. _


	2. Just barge in

**Second chapter! And this is the chapter of Everlue mansion. Hopefully it will answer some questions about Lucy's power. **

**Also, there are hints of Lucy's past revealed. **

**I'm sorry but Erza doesn't appear in this chapter. But I promise she will in the next one. Also, I want to say that the reason why I don't write about Natsu's fights or other people's fights are mainly because this story is centered around Lucy so it follows what she does, rather than jumping to everyone's fights like canon. Plus I suck at fight scenes. This is my first time writing action of any sort so please go easy on me...**

**I forgot to do this but, DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything! This goes for all chapters. and WARNING: contains yuri, girl x girl, etc. **

* * *

"This sucks!" Natsu groaned, slamming his head onto the table. Happy was in an equally depressed state next to him. Lucy agreed with Natsu. It did suck. After all their work, the 1,000,000 jewels Greg had provided them with weren't even real.

"I suppose we are the ones at fault for thinking they were real despite knowing what kind of house he lived in," Ria mused. Lucy gave her friend a poke as the air around Natsu and Happy became darker. "…Too soon?" the small girl asked. Lucy chuckled at their antics. Unlike Natsu and Happy, money wasn't really a problem for her so she wasn't too bothered with the fake jewels. This did not mean that she was heartless and couldn't sympathise with them.

"We can find another job," Lucy suggested. At once, Natsu sprang up from his seat, his previous depressed state all but a thing of the distant past. He fist pumped into the air.

"Let's go! This isn't time to be depressed. We need to earn some money otherwise we're not getting any food tonight!"

"Aye!"

Before any further actions could be taken, someone interrupted with a snide comment aimed at Natsu. "What makes you think you're gonna get it right this time? There aren't any cures for idiocy you know."

Natsu sneered, "You think you're so high and mighty don't you? I wipe the floor with you every single time, droopy eyes!"

Gray got up from his seat with a heated glare. "Oh yeah? Come at me, slanty eyes!"

Cana sighed, "Gray, clothes."

"Shit!"

Lucy stepped well out of the way as Natsu and Gray once again became a blurry tangle of limbs. Elfman, who had been sitting nearby, shouted, "It's Manly!" before joining in on the brawl. He was then promptly sent flying into the air by both Natsu and Gray. Lucy sat down and ordered a drink, wondering when Natsu was going to remember the fact that he needed to be on a job. Mirajane came with two glasses of juice, one for Lucy and a small one for Ria. As she watched Elfman retreat back to his original seat, a thought struck her.

"Mirajane-san, where's Lisanna-san?" she asked. Mirajane froze in mid-step and turned to face Lucy with a sad face.

"She died many years ago on a mission…" Mirajane said, her voice full of longing for her younger sister. Lucy's eyes widened.

"I see… I'm sorry for bringing up painful memories. She was alive with along with everyone else back in the other world before…" Lucy trailed off, her mind going back to _that _day; the day when she had failed to protect all those dear to her. She was snapped out of her daze by Mirajane's voice.

"She _was_ alive?" the white haired girl asked. Lucy clenched her fists, hard enough that her nails caused blood to trail down from her palms. She refused to meet Mirajane's eyes and stared at the table. She didn't have to see to know that Ria was looking at her with knowing eyes.

"Yes," Lucy choked out, "everyone _was _alive. Until…until…I couldn't…dammit!" She softly slammed her fists onto the table, her jaws locked firmly in self-loathing. Her hands started shaking as more and more memories of that day flashed across her mind.

_Natsu's limp body being beaten into the ground. _

_Gray coughing out blood, his body covered in cuts and bruises. _

_Lisanna being shot. _

_Elfman, Mirajane and Cana being stabbed. Again and again. _

_The building set on a green tinted fire. _

_Master dead. Macao dead. Wakaba dead. Reedus dead. Laxus dead. Wendy dead. Evergreen dead. Freed dead. Bickslow dead. Bisca and Alzack dead. Team shadow gear completely annihilated. _

_Erza dead, lying in a pool of her own blood. _

Ria had tears falling out of her eyes as she also remembered that day. They had received the worst kind of surprise after returning from a long mission. Through her tears, she noticed Lucy's eyes starting to change colour. Her eyes widened in horror. _Oh no! I can't let Lucy lose herself! Not after I made her that promise! _Before she could do anything, Mirajane surged forward and enveloped Lucy into a gentle hug.

Lucy concentrated on the warmth and her shaking gradually came to a stop. Her eyes returned to its normal shade. Ria sighed in relief, seeing that Lucy was now back to normal.

"It looks like I've also caused you to remember painful things. Now we're even," Mirajane said softly into Lucy's ear. The blonde girl let out a shaky breath and slowly pulled away from the hug.

"Thank you Mirajane-san. I almost lost myself back there," Lucy said. She glanced around and was relieved to see that no one else had seen the exchange between her and the white haired girl.

Mirajane smiled. "You don't have to tell us anything. Just take your time. Everyone in this guild has their own sadness but what's important is that you always look forward and remember that your friends will always be by your side. That's what Fairy Tail is all about."

Lucy smiled back. _She's right. I need to stop letting the past define me. I will just make sure that it doesn't happen again. _She abruptly stood up from her seat. "Come on Ria. We're going on a job." _Thank you, Mirajane-san. _

She approached Natsu, who was still trading blows with Gray and grabbed him by his collar and dragged him away to the request board.

"Natsu-san, have you forgotten that you need money for your dinner tonight?" she asked. Natsu paled, as if just remembering his crisis. He quickly hurried to the board and after a brief skim, he grabbed a paper. Lucy quickly read through the request. It was to retrieve a book called 'Daybreak' from this rich guy's house and to destroy it as soon as possible.

Ria grinned. "De-ja-vu much? What do you think it is this time? A murder again? A robbery record? A kidnapping evidence?"

Happy sweatdropped, "Don't make morbid jokes like that."

* * *

"So you're a celestial mage. How many spirits do you have a contract with?" Natsu asked. They were walking up to the Client's house in Shirotsume town after getting off the carriage that had taken them there. Natsu had begged Lucy to teleport them to the place but Lucy had refused since she wasn't too familiar with how to get there.

"I have seven of them. The golden bull Taurus, the giant crab Cancer, the water bearer Aquarius and the lion Loki are the gold keys I possess. The clock Horologium, the Southern Cross Crux and Lyra are the silver ones," Lucy listed. Of course, all the golden ones had been passed down to her by her mother Layla but she had personally bought the silver ones at various magic stores.

Natsu and Happy drooled, "Giant crab…"

Lucy ignored them in favour of staring at the client's house. The house gave her an unsettling feeling, although she wasn't sure what it was at this point. "At least the client seems to be able to afford the price this time," she muttered. Next to her, Natsu and Happy were having a party in their heads, already dreaming of endless plates of food.

Ria sighed, "All those two think about is food." Glancing at Natsu, she added as an afterthought, "…and beating people up."

Lucy smiled, "It wouldn't be them if they thought of anything else."

They entered the guest room where a man with grey hair was waiting for them along with his wife. They took a seat on the opposite couch. The man gave them a smile.

"I'm the client Kaby Melon. My request is for you to dispose the book called 'Daybreak' which is in the possession of Duke Erverlue. You can burn the book if you'd like, I don't mind."

Natsu grinned, "Burning things is my speciality. I have an idea. Let's just burn the whole mansion down."

"A piece of cake," Happy agreed.

"Or we can just burn the book and get out of there," Lucy said drily.

Natsu ignored her comment. "It's an easy job with 200,000 jewels reward. I'm all pumped up now."

"Actually, it's 2,000,000 jewels now," Kaby corrected. Immediately, Natsu and Happy's eyes glazed over as they tried to calculate how much they would each get.

"That's 500,000 jewels each," Ria supplied. Natsu snapped out of his daze and straightened his back.

"You can count on us! Let's go, Lucy!"

* * *

It didn't take them long to arrive at Duke Everlue's residence. Lucy noted that the building was obnoxiously big. They hid behind a bush which was several meters away from the mansion as they discussed their next course of action.

"Lucy should infiltrate the house as a maid. The flyer mentioned that the Duke is looking for new maids and the requirements were that they had to be blonde and pretty. I think you fit the bill, Lucy," Natsu said with a big grin.

"So this is why you chose this mission. I guess it's worth a try. Don't blame me if the plan backfires," Lucy said. With that, she approached the front gate and shouted, "I'm here to apply for the maid job."

Ria glanced at Lucy's attire with a sceptical face. "Lucy, I really don't think this is the kind of clothes someone who's looking to be a miad wears."

Lucy looked down at her clothes. She was wearing her usual pair of trousers and sleeveless coat. This time, the t shirt had 'Joy!' written on it. She shrugged, "Why not. Besides, I said it's not my fault if the plan backfires." As soon as she finished her sentence, the ground shook behind her. She turned around just in time to see a bulky pink haired maid at least three times her height shooting out from the ground and landing with a loud thump.

"A maid applicant?" the bulky woman asked. Then, seemingly to no one, she shouted, "Master, there is someone who's applying to be a maid."

Once again, the ground rumbled before a short chubby man shot out from the ground. The first thing Lucy noticed was his moustache and the small clump of brown hair on the top on of his pear shaped head.

"I'm guessing that fat and ugly is a thing in this mansion," Lucy muttered to herself. Unfortunately for her, Everlue had surprisingly sharp ears and heard her muttering. He glowered at Lucy.

"What did you say?" he growled. Ria sighed at this turn of events. She knew that Lucy was going to get herself into trouble again. In that moment, Natsu and Happy, who had been observing from the bush, came running out.

"Lucy! Time for plan T!" Natsu shouted. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" he took a powerful swing at the bulky maid and Everlue and sent them flying to the distance. "Lucy! Teleport us into the mansion!"

Lucy nodded and grabbed Natsu who grabbed onto Happy and teleported them to the main hall. They looked around at the seemingly endless amount of doors.

"I guess there's no choice but to search every room," Lucy said. They then proceeded to go through a room at a time but none of them had any indication of having a book. On their way to the next room down the pathway, the ground in front of them rumbled and four equally ugly maids came flying out, each holding a weapon. Natsu dealt with them by simply swatting them away with his ignited fist.

Without a warning, the bulky maid also came flying out and landed on Natsu, shouting, "Flying Virgo Attack!"

"Natsu!" Happy shouted. Slowly, the maid Virgo was lifted and thrown into the air. Natsu quickly followed up with a swift kick aimed at Virgo, sending the maid crashing into the huge statue of Everlue in the middle of the hall.

In the meantime, Lucy opened the next door near the end of the path way and grinned when she found that the room was full of bookshelves filled with books. Natsu came jogging along with Happy. They made an impressed sound as they looked at the many rows of books.

"It's nice that we've found the room but finding the book is going to be a pain," Natsu said.

Lucy smiled, "Leave this one to me." She concentrated on the word 'Daybreak' and willed the books with that word on the title to glow silver. In the seventh row of the second bookshelf, a book with a yellow cover glowed bright silver. With a small smirk, she said, "Found it." Ria flew over to the book along with Happy. Natsu looked at her with mild confusion.

"I thought you were a celestial wizard?" he asked.

"I am but that's not my main form of magic although I do use my spirits quite often. I'm not sure how to explain it but my main form of magic is the ability to manipulate silver light. Even I don't know the details as to how it works but basically, I can do anything as long as silver light is involved somehow." At Natsu's confused face, she said, "It doesn't really make sense, I know. One day, I'll tell you the full story behind my magic but not now."

They approached the book that was still glowing silver. Lucy plucked it out of its place on the shelf and the light faded away. Natsu took the book from her hands and lit his finger on fire.

"Alright! Let's burn this thing!"

"Wait!" Lucy said, and snatched the book back from Natsu's hands.

Natsu groaned, "Not again! What's the problem this time?"

"I don't know but I get the feeling that we shouldn't burn this book. Give me a second to read over it. Natsu-san, please take care of anyone that interrupts." Lucy then flipped through the book at a high speed, her eyes scanning over the text. She didn't even look up when the ground trembled once again and Everlue popped out of the ground.

"I see. So you were after 'Daybreak'," Everlue said, stroking his moustache. "I don't know why a bunch of wizards are trying to get their hands on such a worthless book but what's mine is mine. And you will pay for calling my beautiful maids ugly and fat. Vanish Brothers!"

Two bookshelves parted to reveal a pathway which two guys were occupying. One was bald and the other had afro-like hair sticking all over the place. Towards the back of the room, Lucy paid them no mind and continued to read.

"That mark…they're from the mercenary guild, the Southern Wolves!" Happy exclaimed.

"Heh, look at these small fries. I'm surprised that Fairy Tail has kids like you in their guild," the afro guy said.

"So you hired these guys?" Natsu asked with a grin. He cracked his knuckles, excited at the prospect of finally beating some people up. With a snap, Lucy closed the book and stood up.

"I finished reading. As I suspected, this book isn't just an ordinary one. Natsu-san, we're bringing this book back with us to the Client. Let's go," she said, walking over to the boy and preparing to teleport of the mansion. Natsu stopped her with a meaningful look.

"Wait. I haven't had a good fight in a while so let me beat these guys up before we leave," he said. Ria sighed, having foreseen this happening.

"Very well. In that case, I will wait for you outside, Natsu-san." With that, Lucy teleported away. Once out in the open air, she leaned against a tree and waited. _If I'm correct about Duke Everlue's personality, he will soon confront me about the book. _And as she had thought, Everlue popped out from the ground just beneath Lucy and grabbed her hands into a tight grip.

"You'll tell me about the secret of that book!" he growled. Lucy sighed. She twisted her hands and with minimum effort, she broke out of his grip. She then swiftly grabbed him by his collar and slammed him into the ground. Everlue took this chance to dig a hole and come back out further away. "Ha! You'll never be able to catch me with my Diver magic!" He taunted and disappeared into the ground. Lucy closed her eyes and concentrated on his presence. She listened for tiny movements in the ground. Her eyes snapped open as she brought down her fist to her right just as Everlue came out of the ground in that exact place. Her fist connected with his nose with a crunch and forced Everlue to move to a safer distance. Ria blew him a raspberry, thoroughly enjoying the show.

"Lucy can beat you to a pulp whist in coma, you fat-pig!" she yelled.

"How?!" He raged. "I am unpredictable! What trick did you use?"

Lucy remained silent. She glanced up at Everlue's mansion when she heard an explosion coming from that direction. "It looks like Natsu-san is about done," she muttered.

Ria sweatdropped, "They're going overboard once again. I'll be surprised if the house is still standing by the end of this."

Everlue growled and took out a golden key.

"If my Diver magic won't work, I'll send you flying with Virgo. Open, the gate of Maiden, Virgo!" Without a delay, the maid appeared and stood in front of her master protectively.

"Oh? So she was a spirit. I knew there was something odd about her presence. In that case, Taurus." With a 'Moo' Taurus appeared, swinging his giant axe. Before going into battle, he looked over Lucy's body.

"Nice body as always! Although you should wear more feminine clothing and show those curves that I know you have," Taurus commented.

"I'll make a note of that," Lucy replied drily, "but first, take them out. I don't really feel like fighting right now."

"Moo!" Taurus rushed forward and swung his axe across Virgo. The maid leapt into the air and pulled her fist back, using the momentum to land a direct hit on Taurus. Taurus took a step back and readied his axe for another strike. "I will not let you harm Lucy-san's nice body!" he bellowed. He once again charged towards the maid and when she jumped, he quickly followed with a more powerful leap and smashed her into the ground with an overhead attack. When Virgo disappeared back into the spirit world, Taurus relaxed and allowed his gate to be closed by Lucy. Everlue trembled with shock and fear.

Just then, another explosion occurred at the mansion. Lucy watched in amusement as the mansion slowly started crumbling down, creating a huge pile of debris. From the big cloud of smoke surrounding the house, Natsu and Happy flew out, heading towards Lucy and Everlue. When the pink haired boy saw Everlue standing near Lucy, he quickly made an assumption and kicked the Duke unconscious. Lucy felt no sympathy for the plump man twitching on the ground, especially after what she had read in the book 'Daybreak'.

Lucy smiled at Natsu and Happy as they reunited. They took a moment to continue watching the mansion fall to bits. "Looks like we destroyed something again!" Natsu said cheerfully. Ria looked like she was going to say something but closed her mouth. She decided that her breath would be wasted on someone like Natsu.

* * *

"Um…so the book 'Daybreak' is actually called 'Dear Kaby' and the real nature of it is a letter from Kemu Zelon to his son," Natsu summarised. "I still can't get over that."

"Natsu, what's more important is that we're not getting any fish tonight!" wailed Happy. Natsu slumped. It had turned out that their client Kaby wasn't actually rich and couldn't afford to pay them. That and they had felt that the job wasn't completed properly and therefore, they didn't deserve the reward.

"But seriously, what are we going to do about dinner? I can't function properly tomorrow if I don't have dinner," Natsu said.

Lucy took pity on her friends. "How about I treat you to dinner at a restaurant tonight? I live in the girls' dormitory so boys aren't really allowed in my room." Natsu and Happy immediately perked up and glomped Lucy.

"You're a really nice person, Lucy," Natsu said, with tears in his eyes.

"Aye."

Lucy vaguely heard Ria mutter something about her being too nice.

* * *

Lucy felt as though she was repeating the events of the day before. First the similarity of the cases and now this. She shuffled to a more splash-free zone and watched as bones and bits of soup flew through the air. She had long finished her meal but it was apparent that Natsu was far from done. Happy was on his fifth fish of the night and Ria was contently sleeping, worn out by the day's events.

"Natsu-san, we should start heading back to the guild now," Lucy said, looking out the window. Night time had already fallen and Natsu showed no sign of slowing down. Lucy wanted to get back to the guild and talk a bit more with her guild mates but at the rate they were going, it seemed like nothing more than a fleeting dream.

"You know, I've heard that Erza's coming back soon," Natsu said out of nowhere. Lucy glanced at his plates and was relieved to find that the food was finally gone. When his words caught up to her brain, she promptly froze.

"Really?" she asked, trying to hide her excitement. Apparently, Natsu wasn't as clueless as she had hoped and noticed immediately.

"You seem excited. Were you good friends with her in the other world or something?" he asked.

This time, Lucy only hesitated for a second before remembering Mirajane's words about how everyone would be accepting. Besides, it would be wise to let Natsu know early on rather than let him find out on his own. "We were. In fact, I was and am in love with her," Lucy said. She held her breath as she waited for Natsu and Happy's reactions. She cared a lot about her friends' opinions and it would hurt her deeply if they disapproved.

After a moment of tense silence, Natsu yelled, "Seriously?!" Lucy flinched slightly at the sudden outburst. _At least he doesn't seem to be angry._ Seeing Lucy's reaction, Natsu calmed down and quickly tried to redeem himself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It's just, woah, you have bad taste in women." Happy slapped his face at Natsu's tactless comment.

Lucy narrowed her eyes, "What's that supposed to mean, Natsu-san?"

Natsu backed up nervously. "Nothing! Erza's a great friend but she's violent and scary you know?"

Lucy relaxed. She was glad that this seemed to be the only issue. In his own way, Natsu was reassuring her that he was fine with it. Although she still thought that the comment about her having bad taste could have been avoided.

"And for your information, Erza-san is beautiful, smart, kind and strong. She's not scary at all and her violence is just part of her charm," Lucy said, her eyes starting to glaze. Happy put a paw to his mouth and stage-whispered to Natsu.

"She's completely blinded by love."

"Happy-san, please remember that those fish you have eaten tonight were all thanks to me."

"Aye!"

Natsu leaned back, "So does this make you a lesbian?"

"Natsu-san, just because I'm in love with Erza-san doesn't make me a lesbian."

"Okay, geez. Just asking."

"…but yes, I am a lesbian."

"…then what was the point of you arguing back?"

"I was merely informing you so that you won't just assume in the future."


	3. The strongest team of silver and scarlet

**I'm back! Firstly, to answer a guest's question: This story will be half adventure/action and half Romance. There are other aspects to be revealed such as Lucy's full back-story and such but we'll get to that later. Since I'll be following canon, I can't just leave out the action. **

**Also, I want to thank everyone who is following this story. I really appreciate the feed-backs and the favourites. They really make my day. **

**WARNING: Girl x Girl so yeah. I'm not going to put this on the next chapters because I made this fact pretty clear on the previous chapters. **

* * *

It was another day at Fairy Tail and time passed at an alarming rate for Lucy. She had been sitting at the bar for at least three hours and so far, nothing worth mentioning had taken place. Natsu and Gray were brawling and trading insults as usual and Cana was downing gallons of alcohol faster than Lucy could teleport. In all honesty, Lucy wondered how the girl didn't have alcohol poisoning. She was snapped out of her reverie by Mirajane's voice.

"How was your first job at Fairy Tail?" Mirajane asked with her usual warm smile plastered on her face. Her tone was soothing and it helped Lucy in getting rid of her restlessness.

Lucy grimaced slightly. "It wasn't one of the most pleasant cases." Ria nodded from her place on the table. Laki had kindly created a set of miniature table and chair to match Ria's size. Lucy had wanted to express her gratitude in some way but the wood-make wizard had adamantly refused, saying that it was just part of what she did.

"Yeah, it was like yeesh. Our client turned out to be a psychotic murderer. Who would have thought?" Ria added with wide hand gestures. Before Mirajane could make a reply of any sort, the main door flung open and a girl clad in Heart Kreuz armour walked in. She had long crimson hair and her face sported a stern expression. Lucy froze before she even turned around. She knew the presence well enough to know that it was Erza. She ignored the knowing look Mirajane gave her and slowly swiveled on her chair. When her eyes confirmed her suspicion, her throat immediately went dry and her heart started pumping faster than ever. Ria snickered at Lucy's dumbstruck expression, knowing that only Erza could have this effect on the girl. Images of Erza lying cold on the ground flashed through Lucy's mind. She saw red for a brief second before her eyes once again focused on the Erza who was standing in the middle of the room. _Erza-san… This time, I will protect you at whatever cost. _

"I have returned from my mission. Is the master here?" Erza asked, her brown eyes scanning the room for Makarov. Natsu and Gray, who had been fighting not only a second ago, were now stuck together with their arms slung over the other's shoulder. They were spouting some crap about going on a mission together and how it was so much fun to be best friends.

"Welcome back. Master's at a conference," Mirajane replied. She seemed to be one of the only few people who were unaffected by Erza's presence.

Erza frowned. "I see." She then turned her frown onto the guild members, who all straightened their backs with fear. "Listen up! On my way back, I've heard that Fairy Tail's been causing more troubles lately. Master may forgive you, but I will not!"

Everyone had cold sweat running down their foreheads while some even went to the corner to whimper. Lucy simply watched on with an uncharacteristically flushed face.

"Erza-san is as beautiful as ever…" Lucy muttered. Mirajane sweat-dropped and felt concerned about Lucy's senses-to-brain connection. Erza seemed like she wanted to say more but closed her mouth, causing everyone to sigh in relief.

Instead, she said, "Are Natsu and Gray here?" Almost immediately, everyone parted to show Natsu and Gray still in a fake friendly hold with even faker smiles adorning their faces.

"Yo, Erza. We're still good buddies as usual," Gray said, a hint of strain in his voice.

"Aye!" Natsu added. Lucy just wanted to hug Erza badly but she didn't want to come off as a creep and make a bad first impression. Erza, who seemed oblivious to the way Gray and Natsu were deliberately tightening their hold on each other, nodded in approval.

"Good. I like seeing you two getting along. In any case, Natsu. Gray. I have a favour to ask." This immediately caught the boys' attention and it finally got Lucy to break away from her thoughts filled with Erza. "During my job, I heard some concerning rumours about a dark guild. Usually, I would consult the master about it first but I believe that this is of utmost urgency. I want your help. Will you come with me?"

Lucy's expression darkened at the mention of a dark guild. She had a huge problem with dark guilds and took every opportunity to wipe out any she would come across. If this problem Erza mentioned involved a dark guild, Lucy didn't want to simply sit by and have the possibility of them getting away without any repercussions. Her decision made, Lucy slid out of her chair and walked up to Erza who was still waiting for Natsu and Gray's reply. Ria followed gleefully, anticipating the drama that she hoped would unfold very soon with Lucy's introduction. When Lucy was just a few meters away, Erza looked up and stared at Lucy in curiosity.

"And who are you? I don't believe I've seen you around before," Erza said.

Lucy showed Erza her guild mark. "I'm Lucy and I joined Fairy Tail yesterday. Oh, and this is Ria, my best friend." Ria performed a cartwheel in the air and took a small bow. Erza watched with interest.

"It seems that there is still much of the world I don't know about yet," Erza muttered. Lucy sighed to herself, deciding that she would explain her situation later when they had free time.

Erza snapped out of her musing and smiled at Lucy. "It is my pleasure to meet you, Lucy. I am Erza Scarlet." Lucy smiled back with a light blush and ignored Ria's snort of amusement. Her best friend had always found Lucy's infatuation with the Scarlet wizard a great source of delight.

"It's nice to meet you too," Lucy started, "but I'm afraid I will have to cut our introduction short. I would like to join in on this quest. I have my personal reasons but I guarantee that you won't be held back by my presence." Everyone gasped at Lucy's proposal, never guessing that the new girl could be so bold in the intimidating presence of the Titania. Erza seemed to think for a moment before nodding.

"I don't see why not." She turned to Natsu and Gray. "We leave tomorrow. Make sure you are ready," she said and walked out of the doors. Mirajane's body shook and she had a haunted face. Cana glanced at the girl with concern.

"What's wrong, Mira?" she asked.

Mirajane stared at the trio who would be accompanying Erza on her trip. "I've never imagined it before but Erza, Natsu and Gray. This could be the strongest team in Fairy Tail. Not to mention that Lucy seems really strong as well."

Cana's eyes widened as she realized the truth in Mirajane's words.

"At least things are working out in Lucy's favour," the white haired girl mused to herself with a small smile. _Good luck, Lucy. Erza can be a bit dense when it comes to things like this._

* * *

"Damn…I feel sick," Natsu grumbled, his face green from nausea. "I think I'm gonna hurl." Lucy, who was sitting opposite the boy smiled slightly in mild amusement.

"Please don't throw up on me, Natsu-san. Unlike Erza-san, I cannot perform requip magic."

Erza reached forward and delivered a punch to Natsu's guts. He croaked in pain before falling unconscious. "That should be better," she said.

Gray looked up in his seat next to Natsu. This seating arrangement had not been the most favourable one but at Lucy's strong, _strong _insisting, Gray and Natsu had finally got the hint and had agreed. Lucy mentally gave herself a pat on the back for informing Gray and Natsu of her feelings beforehand. She had told Gray at the station seeing that they were going to be teammates. Gray had been shocked at first like everyone else but very quickly got used to the idea. Lucy was a bit weary when she spotted Gray having a slight nosebleed. Erza had been mostly oblivious to this whole exchange, too busy putting away her excess amount of luggage.

"Now that you mention it, what magic do you use? Natsu mentioned that you teleported to Magnolia from Hargeon." Gray asked curiously.

Lucy shrugged, "It's not my main magic. I can teleport myself and few others but I can't perform it as well as some people. I mostly summon stellar spirits with my keys."

"And she uses this weird silver magic but nobody really gets how it works so don't bother asking about it," Ria chirped in.

Lucy sent her a glare. "It's not that hard to understand. I've thought about it but it's kind of similar to Gray-san's magic. You use moulding magic right? My magic's like that except I mould with 'Silver'." At Gray's confused look, she explained, "I can perform any magic to do with the colour silver. In moulding magic, imagination is key so as long as I'm creative, I can do a lot with my magic. For example, I can make a ropes come out of my hands as long as they're silver. Am I making sense?"

Gray nodded slowly. Obviously, Lucy's type of moulding magic was a lot harder to grasp than his.

Erza gave Lucy a side-glance. "I see. In that case, where are your keys? Surely as a celestial mage, your keys are of utmost importance?"

"I have them in my personal pocket dimension," Lucy informed them. She made a motion of taking something out from thin air. In that place, a purple gap appeared for a brief second and when it disappeared, a keychain with various gold and silver keys were in her hand. She then let the key go and another gap appeared to suck it in.

Erza looked on in interest. "That's some interesting magic you have there. It's a lot similar in nature with my magic, The Knight," she commented. Lucy smiled to herself. _You were the one who taught it to me, Erza-san. Well, the other you in another world. _They heard a groan and watched as Natsu slumped against his seat with his face still green. Happy continued to eat his fish, already used to Natsu's motion sickness. Gray ignored him and turned his attention to Erza.

"Now that we're all here, I think it's about time you told us what this is about," he said. Erza nodded.

"Right. We're going to go up against the dark guild Eisenwald. They plan to use a magic called Lullaby for something big."

"Lullaby… I've heard of it before," Lucy muttered. All eyes turned on her.

"If there's anything you know about it, please tell us. We need all the information we can get," Erza said. Lucy turned to Ria.

"Ria, can you search your data bank and see if there's anything to do with Lullaby?" she asked. The silver haired girl nodded and closed her eyes. Lucy took this moment to explain. "Elflings are known for their superb memory. They can remember anything tiny thing from the past down to every detail with all their senses. I remember hearing about Lullaby once so I'm pretty sure Ria can recall all the details."

Lucy was thankful that she had already explained her situation to Erza otherwise this could have caused the girl to be incredibly confused. Ria snapped her eyes open and levelled Lucy with a serious gaze.

"I have some bad news. According to my memory, Lullaby is a flute that can perform 'mass curse murder magic' that can kill everyone who hears its melody. The only other thing I remember is that it's vaguely connected with the Dark Wizard Zeref."

This shocked everyone into silence. Erza frowned, "This is all the more reason why we should stop them. On my way back from my last job, I stopped by at a pub in Onibas where wizards would gather. They mentioned a man named Erigor and although I didn't realize it then, Erigor is the ace of Eisenwald. He only accepts assassination jobs so people call him the Grim Reaper."

"Sounds fun," Lucy muttered.

Erza clenched her fists. "I was careless. If I had recognised the name Erigor, I would have pulverized them and had them confess their scheme!"

"A dark guild…" Lucy smirked. She vowed to herself that by the end of the day, every single one of them will never see daylight again. _Erigor…I wonder how your blood tastes like…_ Lucy blinked when she felt Ria poking her cheek sharply. The silver haired girl sent Lucy a concerned look which Lucy quickly replied with a reassuring smile. She subconsciously reached her hands to her ears to check that her headphone was in place despite knowing that they were always there. She would have to be careful not to let her emotions get the better of her. She glanced at Erza who sat next to her with a determined expression. _Erza-san is still alive. There's no need to be rash. _

"Let's get something to eat. It's always a good idea to have something in your stomach when you're fighting," Lucy suggested. She turned to Erza and smiled. "I'm assuming you would like a slice of strawberry cheesecake?"

Erza stared at Lucy in surprise before a look of understanding passed over her face. "It's weird how you know so much about me yet I know next to nothing about you," she said. "Is the me in the other world similar to me in this world?"

Lucy grinned, "You would be surprised how everyone in the guild is almost exactly the same in both worlds. From what I can tell, both Erza-sans' personalities are the same. I'm not sure about the details though."

"Maybe you can tell me all about the other world after this trip. I am interested to hear the full story," Erza said with a smile. Lucy's cheeks turned a pink as she nodded, hopefully not too eagerly.

"She liiikes her," Happy drawled, rolling his tongue. Gray smirked, Natsu was too busy being sick and Erza was left confused.

* * *

"Are you sure they're still in Onibas?" Gray asked, once they got off the train.

"That's what we're going to find out," Erza replied.

Happy, who was sitting amongst Erza's luggage suddenly asked, "Hey, where's Natsu?"

Everyone froze and turned around as the train disappeared into the distance.

"I was so absorbed in the conversation that I forgot about Natsu. I can't believe myself! And he's bad with transportations too! This is my fault. Could someone please hit me?!" Erza exclaimed, her fist clenched in shame.

"I would teleport to where he is and bring him back but I can't do that when the train is moving so fast," Lucy said.

"Leave that to me," Erza said. She walked up to an emergency stop lever and pulled it down without hesitation. The train in the far distance lurched to a stop. "Can you do it now? We'll follow you shortly."

Lucy nodded and teleported away. She appeared in one of the carriages but had no idea which one she was in. Suddenly, she heard an explosion in the carriage further up and grinned to herself. _That's definitely Natsu-san. _She ran to the carriage and found Natsu crouching on the floor with motion sickness as the train slowly started moving again. She quickly grabbed him and teleported them outside. After only a second, a magic mobile approached them at a high speed and came to a stop.

"Natsu, are you okay?!" Erza asked, rushing to the boy who was still recovering from his nausea.

"Aye," Natsu replied weakly. Once the green from his face faded away, he jumped to his feet and shouted in annoyance. "How dare you leave me behind!"

Erza approached him and crashed his face against her chest covered in metal armour. "I'm glad you're not hurt."

"Ow!"

"Lucky bastard…" Lucy muttered darkly, glaring at Natsu. Gray wearily took a step back.

"Lucy, your face is scary…"

Lucy blinked and the dark air around her dissipated. She smiled apologetically, "Sorry. I can get a bit jealous sometimes when it comes to Erza-san."

"A bit?" Ria asked sceptically from Lucy's pocket. "Your whole character change when you're around Erza. You get this stupid dopey expression and you're overly eager and protective, not to mention that you sometimes look like you're about to murder someone, like just now."

Lucy shrugged. "Say what you want Ria."

Natsu rubbed his head. "Urgh! I'm not fine. Some weirdo attacked me on the train. He said he was with Eisenwald or something."

Erza's eyes widened and she immediately slapped Natsu's cheek. "You fool! Eisenwald are the ones we're going after. Why did you let him go?"

Natsu stared up at the redhead in slight fear. "That's the first time I've heard about this," he said.

"I explained just few minutes ago! Listen to people when they're talking!"

Lucy sighed with a dreamy face, "Erza-san is so cute…"

Gray sweatdropped, "You're messed up in many ways."

"I agree," said Ria.

"In any case, we're going after that train," Erza said, strapping on the SE plug and starting up the magic mobile. "Let's go!"

* * *

The journey was thankfully short although it had been a rough one to say the least. Lucy had offered to take over the driving, in concern that Erza was overexerting herself but the requip wizard had declined, stating that it would only waste time. They came to a stop at the hill overlooking Kunugi station. The train had come to a stop and there was a crowd of angry people complaining about a dark guild taking over the train.

"The Eisenwald guys seem to be in a hurry if they're taking over the train," Gray deducted.

"Well, the army is already taking action, though I doubt they'll be able to do anything," Lucy said. "Even the most skilled soldiers won't be able to do anything against a mass curse magic."

"Hopefully we'll be able to put a stop to their plans before anything big happens," Erza said. She started the magic mobile once again, following the train tracks to Oshibana station. Similar to Kunugi station, a crowd of muttering people were gathered around Oshibana station.

"I heard that some bad guys took over this station," someone whispered. Erza frowned and approached a man wearing a porter uniform.

"You, what's the situation inside?" she asked. When she didn't receive an answer straight away, she punched his stomach, rendering him unconscious. She continued this with several other men before finally getting a reply.

"She's really forceful isn't she? Well, that's one difference between the other Erza and this one," Ria commented.

"That's just who Erza is," Happy said.

"Eisenwald is inside! Let's go," Erza shouted. Lucy slung a sick Natsu over her shoulders and sprinted into the station after Erza and Gray. As they ran, Erza filled them in on the situation.

"Apparantly, a small army unit were sent in but they haven't returned yet. Mostly likely they're still engaged in combat with Eisenwald."

"Or they were completely defeated," Lucy suggested, eyeing the unconscious men strewn about the staircase. They walked up the staircase and arrived at a train stop and found a large group of men who all seemed to have been waiting for them. Sitting on the motionless train carriage was a man holding a scythe and standing in front of the group was the man Lucy had seen on the train with Natsu.

The man sitting on the train cackled. "So you really did come, Fairy Tail flies."

Erza glared, "So you're Erigor."

Lucy dropped Natsu unceremoniously onto the ground and nudged him lightly. "Is Natsu-san going to wake up soon?"

Happy shook his head. "It's impossible. He rode a train, a magic four-wheeler and then you. It's a killer triple vehicle combo."

"I see."

Erza stepped forward, "What is your purpose?! What are you trying to achieve with Lullaby?" Erigor flew into the air and landed on a speaker. Erza's eyes widened as realization dawned. "you're going to broadcast Lullaby? You going to let innocent people get killed?"

Erigor chuckled. "Think of it as cleansing. These people flaunt their rights, ignorant of the people who had their rights taken away. It's a sin to live oblivious to the unfairness of the world. Therefore, I, the grim reaper, shall dish out punishment! We shall gain power and take control of the future!"

Lucy frowned as she processed what Eirgor said. It made sense in a twisted way but there was something off about his reasoning. She felt as if there was a different motive. If they were to gain power, wouldn't it be more effective to take out influential people rather than a group of normal citizens? She shook her head and set her face into a neutral expression. Either way, she was going to put every Eisenwald members into the custody of the magic council.

"Too bad, Fairy Tail flies. Looks like you won't be able to witness the glorious Dark Age," said the man standing in front of the group. He crouched down and touched the floor. Three shadows crawled across the floor towards Lucy and materialised into the air, preparing to lash out.

"Why is it that I'm always the first to get attacked?" Lucy mused to herself. "Is it because I'm blonde?" As the shadows shot forward, a blur of flames intercepted the attack. Natsu stood in front of Lucy with a grin. Erigor smirked at this turn of events and flew into air.

"I'll leave the rest to you. Show them the true terror of a dark guild," he said and with that, disappeared into thin air. Lucy narrowed her eyes. Once again, there was the nagging feeling at the back of her head, telling her that everything was way too suspicious.

"Natsu, Gray. You go after him. If you work together, not even the Grim Reaper can hold a chance," Erza said. Natsu and Gray glared at each other, obviously displeased. "Are you listening?!" Erza roared. This set the two into action immediately and they ran off down into the distance.

A man wearing a yellow and black stripped headwear shot out black ropes of ribbons from his hand and jumped onto the rail. "Leave this to me. I, the great Rayule, will take them down!" The man at the front with shadow magic crouched and sank moulded into the shadow, also intending to follow Natsu and Gray.

"We'll follow them when we're done here," Erza said. Lucy nodded.

A man whose face resembled a monkey laughed mockingly. "What are two women going to do against all of us? You flies, I'll pluck the wings off your back."

Lucy's brows twitched at the man's insolence. _How dare he directly insult my guild and thus indirectly insult Erza-san? That's it. Screw the others. I'm going to teach this one a lesson personally. _She took out a small sharp needle from her pocket dimension. Ria paled when she saw what Lucy was holding. _Oh dear. _

"Erza-san, please leave this man to me. I'll teach him not to insult my family ever again. In the meantime, I trust you'll be able to make light work of the rest," Lucy said, her voice cool and devoid of warmth. Erza, despite not knowing what Lucy was thinking, nodded anyway.

"Got it. I'll also give them a taste of what happens to people who insults Fairy Tail." With that, she reached out her hand and a red magic circle appeared, dropping a magic sword into her hand. A bunch of men holding various weapons immediately rushed forward.

"That's nothing special. We've got tons of magic swordsmen on our side!" They shouted. Lucy watched in satisfaction as Erza delivered two slashes and sent the men flying in every direction from the sheer force. Knowing that Erza would be fine, she turned back to the monkey man. He sneered at her and thrust his hand forward, creating a pillar of green light that shot towards Lucy.

Seeing that Lucy wasn't moving, Happy rushed forward, paws outstretched. "Lucy, move!" However, Lucy remained in her place with her face nothing but calm and allowed the attack to make contact with her. Instead of knocking her out upon contact, the pillar of light split into two, curved its course to go around Lucy's body and crashed into the wall behind her. Happy stared in shock at how effortlessly Lucy had done it. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that Lucy's body emitted a faint silver glow. _Did she surround herself with a tight protective barrier? _

"Is this all you've got?" the blonde girl asked with her eyebrows raised. "I didn't even feel that attack." The monkey man scowled and shot three pillars of light towards her simultaneously but all of them ended up the same way the first one had. Lucy teleported to stand directly in front of the man, who was now sweating bullets. She took out her needle and a slow sadistic smirk crossed her face.

"You know, I can teleport objects as well," she remarked casually. "so let's imagine what would happen if I teleport this sharp needle directly into your eye, for example." She watched in amusement as the man took a few steps back, his face full of fear. "yeah, it would hurt like a bitch." This was the last straw for the man and he took off running. Lucy simply teleported to stand in his path and knocked him out using his running momentum. "That was pathetic."

"Lucy!" Ria scolded. "That's was a bit extreme. Poor guy, he's going to have nightmares for weeks. You're way too good at this sadistic act."

"Yeah, it was really convincing, Lucy," Happy added. "I thought you were actually going to do it."

Lucy smiled, "Who said it's an act?" At Ria's disconcerted look, she gently laughed and apologized. "Sorry. That was just a joke."

"Sometimes, I honestly can't tell with you," Ria muttered. Lucy chuckled and watched Erza wipe out most of the men with her Heaven's Wheel armour. This only left the fat man with green hair standing.

He was trembling with fear. "Titania Erza…the Queen of fairies and the strongest woman in Fairy Tail," he muttered. Lucy smiled with pride. _That's Erza-san for you. _The man's eyes widened when he realized that he was the only one left undefeated. With that realization, he quickly took off.

Erza made no move to go after him. Instead, she turned to Lucy. "That man might be headed for Erigor. Go after him."

Lucy mock saluted, "Yes ma'am," and she teleported away along with Happy.

"Are you sure you should have just left her there? She's obviously drained so you could have given her some of that medicine that restores magical power," Ria said, once they were out of Erza's earshot.

Lucy shrugged, "Erza-san doesn't like being weak in front of her friends. She'll just reassure me that nothing's wrong if I tried to do that because she's stubborn. Because of her reputation, everyone puts her on this pedestal when deep down inside, she's just like you and me who needs the support of her friends."

"Since when did you become so good with words?" Ria asked playfully.

Lucy grinned, "That's what being in Fairy Tail does to you."

"Wow you really know Erza well. How much stalking did you do?" Happy asked, looking impressed.

"I didn't stalk. Stalking would imply that I did it secretly without her knowing," Lucy replied and left it at that.

They searched around the station and found no traces of the man with green hair. "Damn, he's an annoying pest," Lucy muttered. She stopped walking to think of a strategy. If she couldn't find the man despite searching the station thoroughly at a high speed, he was most likely a wizard who could mould into things, like that guy who used shadow magic. The green haired man seemed cowardly so it was possible that he was hiding in one place the whole time. Where would he feel the safest? She grinned when the answer came to her.

"Come on Ria, Happy. We're going to do some ambush of our own," said Lucy.

* * *

"Erza!" Gray shouted, rushing into the area. "Eisenwald's real target is the town ahead, where gramps and the other are having their meeting! They plan to use Lullaby there!"

Erza, who was interrogating the monkey about the wind barrier, looked up in shock. She turned back to the guy and glared. "Is that so?!" she growled. She dropped the trembling guy to the ground. "But this station is surrounded by a Magic Wind Wall."

Gray smirked. "Yeah but we have Lucy on our side, remember?"

Erza's eyes widened. "How could I have forgotten? She can teleport us out of this station. Gray! Hurry and find Lucy!"

"Right!" They both ran off in search of the blonde wizard. The monkey man clicked his tongue, annoyed that their plan to stall the Fairy Tail wizards was failing.

"How long are you going to hide there, Karacka…" he choked out. As soon as the words were uttered, a gold magic circle appeared on the wall and the green haired man popped out, scratching his head.

"Sorry…"

"They've got a wizard who can teleport on their side. Go after them and eliminate her."

"That won't be necessary," a voice called out. Before anyone could even blink, Karacka fell to the ground, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Standing over his body was Lucy along with Happy hovering next to her.

"We did it!" Happy cheered.

Lucy turned to the monkey man who looked as if he was about to faint. "Looks like you still haven't learnt your lesson. Lucky for you, I don't have time to deal with you right now."

With a final glare, she flickered and disappeared.

* * *

"Lucy! Where were you?" Gray asked as she appeared next to him. Natsu and Erza were also there along with an unconscious Kageyama.

"Sorry, I was just taking care of some leftovers. Shall we go?"

She grabbed onto Natsu who held Happy and Gray who held onto Erza who was carrying Kageyama. Lucy looked at Kageyama. "Why are we bringing him with us?" she asked.

"He's a dispel wizard. He might be able to do something about Lullaby," Erza said.

"Oh, Okay."

In an instant, they were outside the station.

"Do you think you can take us to where Erigor is?" Gray asked. Lucy shook her head.

"I'm afraid I can't predict where he's going to be. We'll have to follow him by magic mobile," she answered. When she noticed that Natsu and Happy were gone, she smiled. "but I don't think there's any need to worry. I'm sure that Natsu-san will take care of him."

They soon found the magic mobile they had parked before entering the station. Gray climbed into the mobile with Kageyama. Erza sat on the driver's seat and was about to attach the SE plug when Lucy took it out of her hands and gently shoved her off the seat. The blonde girl quickly replaced Erza and strapped on the SE plug and started up the mobile.

Erza stared at her. "What are you doing?"

"Driving," Lucy replied simply.

Erza frowned and approached Lucy, "You should save your energy for later. I'll do the driving."

Before the redhead could get Lucy out of her seat, Lucy quickly reached out her hand, made contact with Erza and teleported her into the carriage next to Gray. Then she quickly moved the mobile before Erza could get out and protest. Erza blinked when she suddenly found herself sitting next to Gray. A moment passed and a soft smile graced her features. _Thank you Lucy._

Lucy stared ahead of her with a frown, "I could say to same to you, Erza-san," she muttered to herself. "you should really think about yourself once in a while."

"That was chivalrous of you Lucy," Ria commented.

"I couldn't just leave her alone when she was obviously having a hard time."

The small silver haired girl giggled. "See Lucy, you're much cooler when you're not trying to please her. This is a lot more likely to win Erza over than your stupid dopey smile so just let your natural charm flow."

Lucy scowled, "Oh shut up, smart ass."

By the time they reached where Natsu and Erigor was, the wind wizard was already knocked out with bruises covering his body. The Lullaby flute was dropped carelessly to the side where unnoticed by anyone, its eyes glowed purple for a brief second before dimming. Lucy smiled at the sight of Natsu standing over Erigor with a battered body and a wide grin. _I knew Natsu-san would be able to do it._

"Oi, you guys are late. I already defeated the Erigor guy," Natsu said as Lucy approached him. Erza and Gray climbed out of the mobile, not noticing that Kageyama was left alone.

"Can't believe you had trouble with a guy like him," Gray commented. Natsu fumed.

"Trouble?! I wiped the floor with him."

"Besides, you're wearing a scarf while half naked. You look like a pervert," Gray said with a smirk.

Natsu scowled. "Like you can talk, exhibitionist freak." He then turned to Lucy, obviously bothered by Gray's comment. "Hey Lucy, can I borrow your clothes?"

With a small smirk, Lucy reached into her pocket dimension and pulled out a pink sweater with a yellow happy face on it. Natsu stared at it with an appalled face.

"That seriously won't go well with my scarf." Despite his grumblings about fashion atrocity, he took the sweater anyway and pulled it on. Lucy did her best not to snicker. And failed.

Suddenly, a shadow appeared overhead and they all looked up. The magic mobile was soaring over them with the support of shadow arms. Sitting in the driver's seat, Kageyama hollered.

"Ha! This is what you get for letting your guard down, flies! I've got Lullaby now!" and he sped away. Erza, Natsu, Gray and Lucy stared after him in stupefied shock. Lucy snapped out of her stunned state and grabbed her teammates.

"We're going to Clover and wait until he shows up. Then, we kill…I mean knock him out and take away Lullaby," Lucy growled.

"I heard kill in that sentence," Gray sweatdropped.

"She really sucked at covering it up," Happy added.

"She definitely meant kill," Erza nodded.

"Lucy sometimes says things she doesn't meant by accident. It just slipped out," Ria said although there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice. Lucy ignored the comments and teleported them away to the conference hall.

* * *

When night time fell, Kageyama finally appeared holding Lullaby. He glanced at the meeting place and smirked to himself. Finally, he would get revenge on the guild masters. The ones who thinks they're all that. He would teach them a lesson and make them suffer. Unknown to him, six Fairy Tail members were glaring at him on a hill overlooking his position: two girls, two boys, one Elfling and one cat.

"I say we just go over there and give him a good punch!" Natsu said, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

"No, we can't act rashly as long as he's holding Lullaby," Erza reminded. They watched as Master Makarov strolled out of the conference hall. Kageyama followed and started up a conversation with him, gesturing towards the flute he was holding.

"Damn him, he's planning to take out master!" Lucy exclaimed and stood up. Screw consequences, nobody gets away with hurting her family.

She was snapped out of her anger by another voice. "Shh…it's just getting good. Watch quietly." It was a bald man wearing a think pink top with white wings attached to the back. Lucy recognised him as master Bob, the guild master of Blue Pegasus. He turned to Lucy and Erza.

"Erza-chan! You've grown so much! And you must be the new member Makarov was talking about."

They watched wearily as he went over to Natsu and Gray and started flirting with them. Below them, Kageyama put the flue to his mouth.

"Shit!" Lucy cursed to herself, ready to teleport and snatch the thing away.

As if reading her mind, the master of Quatro Cerberus, Goldmine said, "Just be quiet and watch. It's getting to the good part."

They watched in tense silence as minutes ticked by with Kageyama still holding onto the flute. They listened to Makarov's speech and smiled when Kageyama dropped the flute and slumped to the floor in defeat. Lucy relaxed, glad that no one was hurt. They hurried to where Makarov was standing with Kageyama.

"Master!"

"Gramps!"

"Master, that was truly a moving speech!" Erza said and pulled the Makarov into her chest, not noticing the way he was groaning in pain. This time, Lucy didn't say anything. She was simply happy that master Makarov was unharmed.

All of a sudden, an eerie voice echoed across the area and the Lullaby flute cackled, its three eyes glowing purple. "I'm tired of all you spineless wizards!" A huge purple magic circle appeared over them with bolts of energy cackling to the ground. "I've had enough! I will devour your souls myself!" A massive treelike abomination appeared from the magic circle. It had three empty sockets for eyes, just like the flute.

"A demon of the book of Zeref…" Goldmine said.

"Is it a tree? Is looks strangely…naked," Lucy commented.

"That's your reaction?!"

"Now then…whose soul should I take first?" the Lullaby demon wailed, peering down at the gathering of wizards. It blasted a ray of energy to a distant mountain. When the smoke cleared, the mountain was no longer there. "I've decided! I'll devour all of your souls!"

The demon roared, causing all the guild masters to cover their ears from the horrible sound. However, the four Fairy Tail wizards stood firm. Makarov smirked. _Show everyone what Fairy Tail is made of!_

Erza charged with a sword in each hand. "Let's go!"

Gray, Natsu and Lucy made a confirmative sound and followed after the redhead. In the air, Erza requipped into her Heaven's Wheel armour and dealt a double slice at the demon. Lullaby groaned and lost its concentration for a second. Not wasting any time, Gray went to occupy the demon's left side.

"Ice make…lance!" Dozens of ice spears attacked the demons lower body, making it wobble unsteadily. Natsu jumped to be level with its face and punched Lullaby with his Fire Dragon's Iron Fist and Lullaby reeled back. Lucy teleported to stand on the demon's head and stretched out both her hands. Thick long silver ropes cackling with energy shot out of the silver magic circle in front of her hands and coiled to bind the demon, causing it to be immobilised.

"Good work, Lucy!" Erza called out. "Everyone, we're attacking together at the same time!" She requipped into her Black Wing armour.

"The hell with this!" the demon roared. Its eyes glowed purple and shot out a concentrated ball of magic to where the guild masters were standing. There was an earth-shaking explosion and the grass caught fire. However, the masters were not harmed by the attack as Lucy had quickly teleported Gray to stand before them and create an ice shield layered with silver glow to strengthen the defence.

Natsu sucked in the fire in the area caused by the explosion. "Now that I've eaten, I'm all fired up!"

"Ice make saucer!" a spinning ice saucer shot forward and sliced the demon's midriff. While the demon's attention was on Gray, Erza flew to the demon's head and dealt a blow to its face. Lucy shot a thin ray of concentrated magic to its shoulder. Lullaby fell on its back, unable to regain his footing due to the binds.

"Natsu!/Natsu-san!" they all shouted.

Natsu punched his fists together. "Alright! The flames of my right hand and the flames of my left hand. Out them together…Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!"

He threw the massive ball of fire at Lullaby. It hit the demon's face with a powerful force and caused a brilliant explosion of white light that reached to the sky before bursting into tiny bits of harmless crystal.

"Marvellous!" Makarov praised, looking like a proud parent.

"One of Zeref's demons, defeated just like that…" Goldmine said.

Kageyama watched in awe, "In-incredible! This is…this is what Fairy Tail Wizards are like?!"

"What do you think? Incredible aren't they?" Makarov gloated with a gleeful expression.

One of the masters sweatdropped, "Incredible but…"

Everyone turned to look at the huge hole where the conference hall and few mountains once stood.

"THEY WENT OVERBOARD!"

Makarov gaped and fainted. His soul flew out of his mouth.

Lucy grinned, "Got to love Fairy Tail."

"Give us our hall back!"


	4. Bonding over cake

**First of all, I would like to thank everyone for sticking with this story. I really appreciate all the comments, favourites, and follows. And now, to answer some questions:**

**Natsu is awesome: In theory, yes, Lucy could indeed do that. BUT for reasons I have yet to reveal in this story, it would be very dangerous for Natsu consume Lucy's silver flame and unless Natsu begs and the situation is REALLY bleak, she wouldn't do it. Assist his flame by adding her own, yes. Letting him consume it? No. Hopefully, I will soon come to revealing the reason for that and when I do, I sincerely hope you'd understand. **

**Kathi9000: Yes, she will. Quite soon. **

**Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter! **

* * *

In a certain part of Era, it was the Magic Council meeting once again and the council members were gathered to discuss the recent events of the Lullaby incident. After agreeing that Lullaby should be sealed away forever, they once again arrived on the topic of Fairy Tail.

"Those Fairy Tail pests! They did it again. Look at the damage they made to Clover!" Org shouted, showing his clear distaste for the guild.

Yajima stroked his beard and attempted to calm the man down. "Despite that, they did manage to defeat Lullaby and prevent the deaths of the guild masters. If it weren't for them, it probably would have been us held responsible for their death."

"Indeed. We should learn to appreciate them more," Siegrain added with an amused smirk. "It's people like them that makes this world so interesting."

Org fumed, "Stop talking nonsense! It's only because of them that we have so much on our hands. I say that it's about time we did something to punish them."

More than half of the council members nodded in agreement. Gran Doma looked around at the predominant consent and made the decision. "Then it is decided."

000

"Welcome to Fairy Hills Lucy!" Levy, Bisca, Laki, Cana, Mirajane and Erza shouted, all of them throwing confetti at the girl. Lucy smiled as she took in the sight of the decorations hung up all over her room.

"Thank you everyone. I really appreciate this," Lucy said sincerely. Although she had technically moved in few days ago, things had been hectic, what with the Eisenwald incident and such so there had been no time for anyone to actually sit down and have a party. On this particular day, no one in the dorm had any missions so everyone had deemed it appropriate to hold a welcome party for Lucy. Naturally, they came to the conclusion that it should be held in her room.

"You have a lot of books, Lu-chan," Levy commented, looking at the five bookshelves lining the wall opposite her bed.

Lucy laughed, "Not as much as you, Levy-san. Compared to you, these are nothing. But you might be interested to know that these are books I've collected from various different worlds. Some of them are really interesting, like the book on the History of Elflings."

Ria flew into the air. "That book's really thick you know! It contains a lot of stuff that even I don't know about."

Levy's eyes sparkled. "Ooh… it sounds so exciting. Do you think I can borrow some of these books?!"

"Of course you can." Levy wasted no further time and rushed to the first bookshelf; grabbing any book that looked remotely interesting.

Cana chugged down a bottle of sake. "Hey, have you got a collection of alcohol from different worlds as well?" she asked, her words slightly slurred due to her drunken state.

"No, I'm sorry Cana-san. I didn't think to collect alcohol," Lucy informed her regretfully.

"Don't feel bad Lucy. Cana really doesn't need any more alcohol in her system," Laki said.

"Ooh! I found a sexy yaoi doujinshi!" Levy exclaimed, holding up a book with a cover of two men stripping each other and looking into each other's eyes. Laki immediately jumped up and made a grab for the book. She snatched it out of Levy's hand and rapidly flicked through the pages with stars in her eyes.

Bisca gave Lucy a pointed look, "I didn't think you would be into this kind of thing."

"I wonder what other naughty books you possess, Lucy," Mirajane said, mirth dancing in her eyes.

Lucy shrugged, "That was just a present I received from someone."

"Who was it?" Erza asked in curiosity.

Lucy blushed slightly. "Oh, um…you," she said in a low voice. She made an effort to not look into anyone's eyes. There was a moment of silence before everyone burst out into laughter, except for Lucy and Erza who were red in the face. Trying to make the situation less embarrassing, Lucy continued, "I meant you in the other world! And you only gave it to me as a joke…I think."

She grimaced when there was another round of laughter and she realized that she had only made everything worse.

Just then, the door to her room burst open and a frog-like humanoid creature walked into the room. "I am a messenger from the Magic Council and I'm here to announce the arrest of Erza Scarlet for committing eleven crimes in the Eisenwald incident including mass property damage," the messenger announced. The room fell into silence and the girls glanced at Erza to gauge her reaction.

"An amphibian…? What is this creature?" Lucy muttered. Ria winced when the messenger sent the blonde girl a fierce glare. _Lucy! Think carefully before you speak! _

Erza got up calmly and followed the messenger out of Lucy's room. The messenger sent Lucy one final glare before leading Erza out of Fairy Hills and to the Fiore branch headquarters. The girls sat in a sombre silence, the party mood quickly deflated due to the sudden arrest of Erza.

"Hopefully Natsu doesn't find out. He'll go on a rampage," Levy commented. Everyone nodded in agreement. Lucy abruptly got up.

"I'm going to go for a walk," she announced. Everyone gave her a wary look.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do Lucy," Mirajane warned her.

Lucy waved away her concerns. "Don't worry, Mirajane-san. Like I said, I'm just going out to get fresh air. Right now, I'm not really in a mood to celebrate."

She walked out, leaving the girls staring after her in worry.

"You're not going to do something reckless are you?" Ria asked suspiciously, once they were out on the streets.

"Ria, I know better than to go against the council. Besides, I suspect that she'll probably be let out by the end of the day anyway," Lucy answered. "I'm just going to visit a shop."

They walked further down until they stopped at a patisserie shop. Lucy entered, ignoring the confused face of her friend. The shopkeeper looked up as the bell attached to the door chimed.

"Welcome! What can I do for you?" the man in a white apron asked. He stood behind a glass counter where many different kinds of cakes were displaced. Lucy searched the shelves for the cake she was looking for. She pointed at the white cream cake with strawberries at the top.

"I'll have one of this please," she said, taking out the appropriate amount jewels to pay. The confusion finally cleared from Ria face.

"Oh. You're thinking of giving this to Erza, aren't you?" she asked with a smile.

Lucy nodded as she took the cake encased in a gold box and carefully placed it in her pocket dimension. "Yeah. She missed lunch just for the party food so she must be really hungry by now."

"Are you going to give it to her after she's let out?"

"Nope. I'm going to make a visit to the council headquarters. It's not like I'm breaking the law by visiting a friend."

Ria groaned. "You _are _going to do something reckless. Please think about the consequences. What if they have surveillance lacrimas, which I'm certain they will? It's not just a matter of teleporting in and teleporting out."

Lucy grinned, "Don't worry, I have a plan."

"God knows how much I hate your 'plans'" Ria grumbled. "You know what? Fine. Don't say I didn't try to warn you." And with that, she disappeared into Lucy's pocket. Lucy sighed. Oh well, she would make it up to her friend later.

000

Erza closed her eyes and leaned against the prison wall. She was certain that night time had fallen outside but since she was underground anyway, she had no way of confirming her suspicions. She sincerely hoped that the news of her getting arrested hadn't reached her guild mates; at least not until she's let out. Even though it wasn't her fault, she still felt bad about ruining Lucy's welcome party, especially knowing that everyone had prepared a lot for the party. She hoped that they were at least having fun without her. Just as she was thinking that, the door to her cell opened and someone was shoved in.

"Hopefully, your time in prison will help you reflect on your actions. You'll be here till midnight. Don't cause any trouble until then," said a gruff voice before the door was slammed shut.

Erza remained silent, not sure if it was wise to say anything. That is, until she heard an all too familiar voice.

"Gosh, Lucy. _That _was your plan? That was the single most stupid and reckless plan ever. You're lucky that you only got off with few hours in prison."

Erza's eyes widened in shock. Lucy? What was Lucy doing in prison?

"Geez, I get it. It worked didn't it?"

There was a huff and then silence. Erza cleared her throat. "Lucy? Is that you?" she asked, squinting her eyes to make out the figure sitting opposite her.

"Um… good evening, Erza-san," Lucy said. She lit her finger with a bright silver light, illuminating the whole room.

Erza frowned. "What are you doing here?"

Before Lucy could reply, Ria beat her to it. "She crashed into the building, literally. Now there's a big hole in one of the rooms." the small girl said bluntly.

"WHAT?! Are you stupid?!" Erza hissed, glaring at Lucy who fidgeted slightly under her intense gaze.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time…" Lucy mumbled, entirely avoiding Erza's stare. The redhead sighed.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, this time in a much softer voice. At this, Lucy perked up with a small grin.

She opened up her pocket dimension and took out a gold box. "Since you didn't eat lunch, I thought you might be getting hungry so I bought you a cake." Lucy opened the box to reveal an average sized sponge cake with white cream and strawberries covering the top and the side. Erza opened and closed her mouth, lost for words until she settled into a soft smile.

"I don't know whether I should scold you for being so reckless or be touched that you thought of my well-being," she said. Lucy grinned with a slight blush. She took out a knife and cut the cake into four sliced. She placed a slice on a plate and handed it to Erza along with a fork.

"Maybe you should decide that after eating the cake. It's really delicious," Lucy said, taking a slice for herself as well. She cut a small bit and gave it to Ria who huffed but took it anyway. The three ate their cakes in silence, revelling in the heavenly taste.

"Mm…this cake really_ is_ good." Erza admitted as she took another bite. Lucy smiled. She had long finished her own slice but she was content in simply watching the other girl enjoy the food. Seeing Erza happily eating the cake Lucy had bought definitely made the few hours in prison worth it.

D00

Luckily, Natsu had been on a job with Happy the previous day so the news of Erza's arrest did not reach him. Anyone who knew was wise enough to keep it to themselves. Lucy was subjected to a brief talk with master Makarov regarding her property damage. Despite the chiding tone, Makarov expressed no real anger towards Lucy's action and she was let off with only a 'don't do it next time'. Of course, her little exchange with Erza also remained a secret between the two of them. Currently, the recently formed Team Natsu sat around a table, each minding their own business.

"I'm so booored..." grumbled Natsu. Lucy paused in her reading and looked up at the boy.

"We could go on another job," she mused. "It's been a long time since I've been on an S-class one." At this, Gray, Natsu and Erza's heads simultaneously snapped to stare at her in surprise. Lucy blinked at the strange reaction until she realized with a groan that technically, she wasn't really an S-class wizard anymore now that she was in Earthland. "Great. Now I have to take the exam all over again," she grumbled with a slight displeased frown. The exam was unpredictable each year and Lucy really didn't want to go through the effort again.

"You're an S-class wizard?" Natsu asked. He had a certain gleam in his eyes that Lucy carefully identified as admiration in her mind.

Before Lucy could say anything, her small companion quipped in, "Only in the other world. Now she has to take the exam allllll oooover agaaaaain."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at Ria. "Watch what comes out of your mouth or I'm not going to take you along on my next job." This got the Elfling to shut up immediately. "But yes. I became an S-class wizard in the other world two years after Erza-san," Lucy informed.

"Since I'm two years older than you, does that mean that you and I passed the exam at the same age?" Erza asked, mild curiosity lacing her voice.

Despite having been warned, Ria smirked as she approached Erza. "Trust me, it wasn't an accident. Lucy refused to take part in the exam until she was ten. _The age when you became an S-class wizard,_" Ria mock-whispered. Erza's eyes widened as she caught the implication and stared at Lucy, who was blushing hotly.

"I refused because I wasn't ready and accepted because I _was _ready!" Lucy hissed through clenched teeth while avoiding Erza's stare. She glared at Ria, her eyes promising all sorts of revenge. The silver haired girl swallowed and looked away.

"Still, becoming S-class at the age of ten is pretty awesome!" Natsu enthused, immediately breaking the slightly tense mood surrounding the table. "Right, Happy?"

"Aye!"

"What were the tasks in your exam? It changes every year, doesn't it?" Gray asked in interest. He knew that he had a high chance of being selected for the exam this year so he wanted to be prepared for anything.

"For our first task, we had to collect eight items and bring it with us to the finishing line within the set amount of time. We weren't told what the items were or where they were placed but they made it clear that there weren't enough items for all of us. Only the first two to arrive at the finishing line were allowed to continue. You can probably guess that this caused a lot of fights amongst us. I came second because three people were right behind me and it took me some time to defeat all of them before reaching the line. With only two of us left, we had to fight with our items but we weren't allowed to use magic at all. The last one standing became an S-class wizard which, as you all know, was me."

Gray smirked, "Sounds fun," he said with no little amount of sarcasm in his voice.

"Oh, it really was! I had so much fun that day. Plus it gave me a decent exercise," Lucy agreed happily, completely missing Gray's sarcastic tone.

The ice wizard looked at her in disbelief. "You call that a decent exercise? From what you described, it sounds like total labour. And I thought Erza had a nasty training regime."

"What was that?" Erza asked sharply, without missing a beat.

"Nothing!" Gray squeaked, cold sweat running down his face. Lucy smiled as she basked in the familiar atmosphere of her team. She remembered a similar scene from over four years ago when the four of them were just talking and laughing without a care in the world. She hadn't realized just how much she missed this until in that moment. All of a sudden, a wave of drowsiness swept over her and her eyes started dropping. She desperately tried to keep awake, internally cursing herself for letting her guard down too much. She noticed that everyone else had all but fallen asleep; their bodies limp on the floor. Other than her, only Erza and Makarov seemed to be still conscious. With trembling hands, she just about managed to keep upright. Through her heavily lidded eyes, she spotted a mysterious man walking into the guild and taking a request off the board. She had never seen the man before, not even in the other world but something about his presence bugged her. There was a strong sense of familiarity that she couldn't shake off, as if she had met the man countless of times before.

The master watched the man as he approached. "I'll be back," he said, his voice muffled by the cloth he wore over his mouth and nose.

The sleeping spell was apparently not completely ineffective on the master because he looked up a bit sluggishly, his movements actually suggesting his age. "Hold it! Lift the sleeping spell first."

The mysterious man wordlessly turned around and headed for the door. "Five. Four. Three. Two." He stepped out into the open air and Lucy's head turned to follow his movement with some difficulty. "One." The sleeping spell lifted and everyone jolted awake. Lucy finally felt the weight on her eyelids lifting itself and her strength returned to her body.

"Who was that man? His face was almost completely covered so I couldn't really see what he looked like," Lucy asked. Deep inside, she felt that she knew the man. Not from the guild but from somewhere else.

"You were able to stay awake?" Gray asked in surprise. "That's pretty impressive considering that his spells are pretty strong."

"Indeed. Even I found myself slipping into unconsciousness," Erza agreed.

Lucy shrugged, "I was just barely conscious. But who is he? He's not in the guild in the other world."

"That's Mystogan. He's one of the strongest members of Fairy Tail along with Laxus and Erza. He puts a sleeping spell on everyone each time he comes to collect a job so only the master knows what he looks like," explained Gray.

"I know what he looks like." The voice came from above them. Lucy turned to see Laxus leaning against the rail on the second floor with his head casually resting on his hand. "Mystogan's shy. Don't bother him so much."

Natsu's eyes snapped open at the voice and he jumped up with his fists clenched. "Laxus! Fight me!"

Laxus sneered, "You think you can take down me, the strongest member of Fairy Tail?"

"Come down you coward!"

"Why don't you come up?" Laxus taunted, unaffected by Natsu's menacing glare.

"Fine by me!" Natsu made a dash for the stairs. The master sighed, enlarging his arm and pinning the pink haired boy to the ground. Natus grunted from the force.

"You're not allowed on the second floor! Not yet," said the master. Lucy glanced at his large hand warily, wondering if that was the treatment she was going to get if she somehow forgets once again that she's not an S-class wizard anymore.

From the second floor, Laxus laughed. "Looks like you got yourself into trouble."

"Laxus! That's enough out of you," Makarov snapped. Laxus ignored him and faced the rest of the guild.

"I won't let anyone take the title of Fairy Tail's strongest! Not even Mystogan or Erza. I'm the strongest!" he shouted. He then walked away with his large fur coat swooshing behind him.

"Looks like Laxus is as egotistical as ever," mused Lucy. She decided not to mention that one time she had beaten the guy, although it was before she had most of her powers sealed. She absentmindedly fiddled with her headphone. _I guess I won't be beating him again anytime soon. _As long as she wore the headphone, her full power was sealed away and in all honesty, Lucy preferred to keep things that way. After all, the last time she had unleashed her full power, she almost became permanently insane. She'd rather be beaten a million times than go through the experience again.

She snapped out of her thoughts in time to see Natsu walking back to their table with a scowl. He plopped down onto the seat opposite Lucy. They were alone on the table with Ria and Happy. Seeing that Natsu was uncharacteristically in a brooding mood, Lucy was rightfully concerned.

"Why don't you pick a job Natsu-san and we can go together tomorrow along with Gray-san and Erza-san," Lucy suggested, trying to break the boy away from his thinking mood. At her suggestion, Natsu got a gleam in his eyes which only made Lucy even more worried. He looked at her thoughtfully. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Natsu slowly nodded, a grin forming on his face.

"Sure."

000

Lucy closed her book with a sigh as she heard her window sliding open. It was well into night time and everyone else in the dorm had retreated into their rooms. She set the book onto the table and turned, fully expecting Natsu climbing through the window. And she was right. The pink haired boy seemed perfectly fine with climbing into a girl's room in the middle of the night without any warning.

"Natsu-san. You do realize that this is a girls' dormitory." It wasn't a question than it was a statement. "Boys aren't allowed in. Erza-san would have your head if she spotted you."

Natsu seemed unconcerned by her warning. He plopped down onto her bed without a care in the world and Happy followed suit, bringing out a fish and nibbling on it. Without her invitation, they had made themselves perfectly at home. Lucy resigned to the fact that this was probably going to become a regular occurrence. She hoped that Natsu would at least have the sense to be discreet.

"Look Lucy, I got us a job!" he said, practically pushing the sheet into her face. She calmly took hold of the sheet and read it over. It was a request to save the cursed island of Galuna and the reward was a hefty 7 million jewels along with a gold zodiac key. That wasn't the problem though.

"Natsu-san," she started slowly. "This is an S-class job."

"Yeah, I took the job off the board on the second floor," Happy said.

"Neither of us are S-class so it's forbidden for us to take this job. Please tell me that you realize this could get us kicked out of the guild."

"You're an S-class wizard," Natsu argued. Lucy sighed and reminded him that she wasn't in Earthland. Natsu shrugged. "Yeah, but if we complete this job, gramps will acknowledge us. If you're not going, I'm going to go alone."

"Why don't you ask Erza-san to come along? Then we'd be allowed," Lucy suggested. Natsu stared at her as if she had grown two heads.

"No way. If we take her, then we wouldn't be proving anything. Besides, she would be really mad that I went to the second floor."

Lucy sighed as she realized that there was no changing Natsu's mind. As much as she didn't want to break the rules, she also couldn't let Natsu go alone in her good conscience. The job was S-class for a reason and at least she had experience taking such jobs whereas this would be Natsu's first time. She knew that she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she let her friend jump into the unknown without her there to keep him out of danger.

"Fine, I'll go. Only because I don't want you to go alone," Lucy relented. Natsu and Happy cheered.

"Great! Meet us in front of the guild first thing tomorrow morning."

000

"Master!" Mirajane shouted as she ran down the stairs. "A job is missing on the second floor!"

Makarov sipped his morning coffee. He breathed in the bitter scent and sighed. He put the cup to his mouth for another sip. Suddenly, his eyes widened and he promptly spat out the mouthful of coffee in his mouth.

"What?!" he yelled hysterically as Mirajane patted his back to sooth his violent coughing.

Macao and Wakaba observed the scene.

"Must have been an S-class job since it was on the second floor," Macao commented.

"Who the hell's stupid enough to take an S-class job without permission?" Wakaba asked.

Laxus, who had been watching the whole ordeal from the second floor, smirked. This was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the annoying flame brat.

"A cat," he said, drawing everyone's attention. His smirk widened when he saw realization dawning on Makarov. "I saw a cat with wings take off with it."

Mirajane gasped, "Happy?!"

"Meaning Natsu and Lucy? What were they thinking?"

"Yeah, you would think Lucy would know better."

"Gramps! This is obviously a breach of rules. You're kicking them out as soon as they come back right?" Laxus shouted, his smirk still in place. Makarov said nothing. Mirajane stomped up the stairs and confronted Laxus.

She put her hands on her hips in a scolding manner. "Laxus! If you saw, why didn't you stop them?"

"I just saw a cat run off with a piece of paper. I never imagined that it would be Happy," he replied. It was obvious that he was lying and Laxus himself knew this but he didn't care.

Makarov looked up. "Wait, which request did they take?"

"The cursed Galuna island," Mirajane answered.

Everyone's eyes widened. They had heard stories of the cursed island, about how the place was crawling with monsters and that anyone who got close enough would turn into one themselves.

"Laxus! Bring them back!" Makarov shouted, panic evident in his voice.

Laxus shrugged noncommittally. "No way. I have my own job to do. Besides, members of this guild are supposed to be able to take care of themselves, right?"

Makarov fumed, "Out of everyone here, who else can bring Natsu back by force?!"

At this, a chair scraped back and Gray stood up. The comment obviously ticked him off. "Gramps. Don't be so insulting. I'll bring that flame-brain back." He strode out of the door and disappeared into the distance.

000

"A boat?" Natsu paled, his face already turning green from just looking at the swaying motion of the vehicle. Up, down, up, down, up, down. He nearly threw up then and there.

Lucy looked at him with an amused expression. "We _are_ going to an island after all," she replied.

Natsu averted his gaze from the boat. "Can't we swim there?" He followed Lucy gaze to the sea and saw that there was absolutely no sign of the island, not even a tiny speck. "Okay, so it's a bit far away."

They approached the nearest free boat. A man was untying the knot anchoring the boat to the port. He looked up as a shadow cast over him.

"Hello, could you take us to the Galuna island?" Lucy asked. The man startled at the question and reeled back as if they were some kind of infectious disease.

"Galuna island?! You people must be out of your minds! I'm not going anywhere near that place!" They were immediately shooed away. This continued with several boats until they came across a lone man setting up his boat. They asked the same question and unlike the others, he did not deny it straight away but calmly explained that no sailors would willingly go there.

Natsu smiled smugly. A little too smugly, in Lucy's opinion.

"See? No one's going to take us there. Why don't you just teleport us to the island?" Lucy ingored his question. In theory, she could in fact simply teleport them to the shore but she wanted to stall the quest even for a bit so that she could try and convince Natsu to pull out. She was almost ready to give up and just take Natsu's advice when she spotted Gray walking towards them from her peripheral vision.

"Gray-san's here," she informed Natsu. They both turned to face the ice wizard who smirked at them.

"Found ya."

Natsu clenched his fists. "Gray, what are you doing here?"

"Gramps asked me to bring you back." Lucy mentally thanked Gray over and over again. She really preferred not to be kicked out of Fairy Tail after recently re-joining. "Let's go," he said.

"Don't screw with me! I'm going on the quest no matter what!" Natsu shouted.

"You directly broke a rule, Natsu! Besides, imagine what would happen if Erza found out," he said the last part with a shudder. This got Natsu to momentarily falter. Happy cried in terror as he flew around. Ria snickered as she watched all the blood drain from Lucy's face. However, it didn't take a second for Natsu to regain her determination in tenfold.

"I'm gonna show Erza what I can do!"

"I'm gonna bring you back no matter what!"

They butted heads and glared at each other. Lucy stepped to the side. Gray encased his fist in sharp bits of ice and Natsu followed by igniting his on fire. This seemed to draw the boatman's attention.

"Wait, you guys are wizards? Are you going to break the island's curse?!" he asked, his voice going up a few volume.

"Yup!" Natsu answered immediately, ignoring Gray's glare.

The boatman stared at them for a while. He quickly gestured them to the boat. "Get in!" Natsu grinned and without a word, he knocked Gray out with a swift kick to his mid-section. He hoisted the ice wizard onto his shoulder and climbed aboard. Lucy followed silently with a sigh, disappointed that Gray proved to be completely useless. She knew that if they didn't hurry, Erza would come after them next and that was a thought she really didn't want to entertain.

The boat journey took them a whole day and it was only towards night time that they could see land in the distance. Gray was tied up tightly with thick ropes and Natsu was leaning over the boat, heaving and mildly throwing up into the sea. Gray glared at the boatman who was looking into the distance.

"You! Why did you agree to take us there?" he asked with a scowl. His voice was laced with frustration and he was obviously beating himself up for not completing master's order.

The man turned to face them. "My name is Bobo and I used to live on the island. I fled from the island because bad things happen to people there. Can you people really lift the curse?" Bobo swept away his cape and showed them his left arm. The arm certainly couldn't be called a human's arm. It was purple and scaly and instead of fingers, he had sharp claws. "This demon's curse…" Bobo trailed off with a dark look. He turned back to the sea. "There it is, the Galuna island."

Lucy and Gray followed his gaze and spotted a lump land with tall mountains. At the peak of one of the mountains, there was a bright yellow glow. Lucy whirled back around when she suddenly felt the presence of Bobo disappearing. Sure enough, the man was no longer with them on the boat.

"He disappeared…" Lucy muttered. Gray and Happy looked around but there was no sign of the man anywhere.

Ria gulped, "I have a bad feeling about this."

Lucy stared at the island and the glow at the top of the mountain. "Me too, Ria. Me too."


	5. A giant rat and then a giant monster

**Chapter 5! Galuna island part 2(?) Hope you enjoy this chapter too. **

* * *

Lucy opened her eyes with a groan. She immediately hissed as her eyes were exposed to the harsh rays of the sun. She vigorously rubbed her eyes in an attempt to adjust to the brightness and took in her surroundings. She was lying on the sand next to the sea and to her left were the remains of the boat they had been travelling on not too long ago. She tried to remember the events of the previous night. The man had disappeared, a huge wave had engulfed them and Lucy had fallen asleep with fatigue before she could even summon Aquarius or teleport to safety. Right.

She patted her pocket to make sure that Ria was safe and sure enough, the small girl was curled up inside, peacefully sleeping.

"Ugh…where are we?" It was Natsu, who had stirred awake after Lucy. His clothes were dishevelled and his hair was sticking up in all directions, more so than usual. Happy was standing next to Natsu and was checking his bag to see if his fish was still there.

"Good morning, Natsu-san, Happy-san," Lucy greeted as she also got to her feet. Was it morning? She didn't know. The sun was high in the air although it didn't quite look to be midday. Just then, another groan came from their right and they turned to find a half-naked Gray pushing himself off the ground and spluttering out sand from his mouth. "And good morning Gray-san," Lucy finished.

"Is this Galuna Island?" Gray asked as he shook off the sand clinging onto his trousers. The question was rhetorical but Lucy felt compelled to answer him regardless.

"I believe it is," she said. "Quite a coincident that we would conveniently get swept onto the shore of the Island we just happened to be heading for. I smell something fishy."

"Maybe you're smelling my fish," Happy suggested. Lucy pointedly ignored his input.

Natsu grabbed his belongings which had been swept up with him. "Who cares? In any case, let's go and explore! I bet there's something hidden on this Island!" he enthused. Happy bounced merrily.

"Aye sir!"

Lucy decided that at this point, it was meaningless to even try and persuade Natsu otherwise so she conceded with a small sigh. After all, if you can't beat them, join them. That, and a small curious part of her really wanted to get to the bottom of the Galuna Island's mysterious curse. It didn't hurt that the Island had an exotic feel to it.

"Lead the way. There's supposed to be a village on this Island and the chief of this village was the one who posted the job. We should try and head there," she said, and gestured for Natsu to step forward.

"Wait," Gray called out.

Natsu turned to him with no small amount of ire. "What now? The boat's busted so you can't take us back," he said.

Gray smirked, "Who said anything about taking you back? I'm coming with you guys. Gramps can't complain if we complete this job properly right? I won't let you beat me to the second floor."

The frown was wiped off Natsu's face and the pink haired boy grinned. Gray and he displayed a rare show of friendship by bumping fists together. Lucy clapped them both on the back and pushed them forwards.

"Off to the village, Natsu-san, Gray-san. We don't have all day," she said. Actually, she was sure that they had all the time in the world but she didn't dare risk encountering an angry Erza. It would be beneficial for them all to finish the job as quickly as possible. Finding a small village in an unknown island was easier said than done. Lucy had estimated that they would take around 2 hours, maximum but they didn't find the village until dark. During their expedition around the island, Ria had woken up full of energy. The small girl had deemed it appropriate to narrate everything they did on the island in an overly dramatic manner. For example, a snake had slithered down a tree and Ria had commented. _"Oh, will our heroes' fate be sealed with a quick bite of the serpent's fang? What more dangerous things lie in this mysterious island?" _ Lucy had stumbled slightly and Ria had narrated, _"Lucy stumbles on the stray stone lying in her path. Is this a sign of imminent danger? One does not know. Although Lucy put on a brave face, she was trembling with fear on the inside." _It was getting so ridiculous and at one point, Lucy had had enough and approached Gray to encase Ria in a cube of ice. That had shut the silver haired girl up.

KEEP OUT

Lucy stared at the sign. "Looks welcoming," she commented. She craned her neck to see the top of the impressively built wall of tree trunks. No one was at the top and no one was around on the ground. At least it seemed to be the mysterious village they were looking for.

"What now?" Gray asked.

"Let's just punch our way through," Natsu suggested.

Ria rolled her eyes, "Do you ever think with your brain once in a while? I think you might find it useful."

"Is anyone there?" Lucy shouted, in a rather half-assed manner. Secretly, she hoped no one would come so that she could see Natsu breaking down the wall. After half a day of walking through tall grass and trudging her way through the island with nothing eventful happening, she was craving some excitement. To her small disappointment, two figures appeared at the top of the wall and peered down at the trio.

"Who's there?!" the figures shouted. The tone of their voice was harsh and accusing but guarded and wary all at the same time. Lucy figured they probably had their fair share of problems without having to deal with possibly hostile intruders.

"We're wizards from Fairy Tail and we're here for a job!" Lucy shouted back. She hoped that they would come down or let them in soon because she really didn't like shouting. There was a slight pause, as if the figures were trying to work out whether this was a trick or not.

"Nobody notified us of the job being accepted!" they said, sounding suspicious. Lucy suppressed a wince at the reminder.

"There was probably a mix up of paper work!" Gray lied.

"Show us your marks!" the figures demanded. Lucy lifted up her right hand and showed them her silver Fairy Tail mark. Natsu turned and displayed the red mark on his right shoulder and Gray lifted up his shirt to show them his dark blue mark on his chest. Lucy heard the figures murmuring, most likely discussing their next course of action. Slowly, the wall began to lift up, creating an opening for them to walk in. On the other side of the wall, there was a group of people covered in cloaks waiting.

"It feels like we're walking into a monster's mouth," Happy commented.

"And how would you know what walking into a monster's mouth feels like, Happy-san?" Lucy asked with raised eyebrows. Happy stayed silent as he contemplated his answer. As they walked in, the man holding a strange staff with a crescent moon perched on top began to speak.

"I am Moka, the chief of this village. Let's get right down to business. Please have a look," he said and with no further introduction, he turned to the rest of the group and shouted, "Everyone!"

Immediately, there was a collective sound of cloths falling to the ground as the villagers dropped their disguise. As they revealed their true form, Lucy finally understood why they referred Galuna as a cursed island. Everyone had at least one body part transformed into a beast. It was like Elfman's beast take-over except more permanent.

"Just like the man from the boat," Gray muttered. Natsu seemed unfazed by the big revelation and instead focused on the chief in particular.

"Crazy side-burns!" he exclaimed.

Lucy sighed, still inspecting the state of the villagers. "I'm glad you have your priorities straight Natsu-san." Still, she was curious about the said side-burns so she turned to see for herself. Her eyes widened, "Is that even hair?!" she exclaimed, completely forgetting her earlier disapproval of Natsu's reaction.

"I believe it is," the chief answered dryly. "However, regarding the curse, everything on this island is affected, including animals."

Gray frowned, "What makes you think this is a curse? You sure it's not just some contagious disease?" he asked.

"We've seen many doctors but they said that no such disease exists. And I'm sure the moon's magic has something to do with this," the chief said.

"Moon's magic…" Lucy muttered with narrowed eyes. She had encountered something similar in another world during her dimension-hopping days though she doubted that it worked the same way in this world. As far as she knew, the moon's magic only made people stronger, not take on weird forms.

"This island has absorbed moonlight since ancient times and made the island shine beautifully. However, some years ago, the moonlight suddenly turned purple," the chief explained.

"Purple moon?" Natsu repeated. Ria looked up instinctively and gasped as she saw a glimpse of something purple peeking out from beneath the clouds.

"The moon's coming out!" Happy said. Everyone looked up and as the moon slowly started revealing itself, a rich shade of purple light covering them from head to toe.

"Damn, this is creepy."

"It's a curse," the chief choked, beads of sweat running down his forehead. "This is the moon's magic." Immediately, cries of pain reverberated through the area as the villagers writhed in agony. Lucy watched as their already transformed arms and legs took on an even more monster-like state.

"What in the world is this?" Gray whispered, shock lacing his voice.

"As you can see," started the now-fully-monster chief. "We turn into these forms whenever the purple moon is out. In the morning, we'll all turn back to normal. However, there are some that lose their mind and never turns back. My son was one of them. I had no choice but to kill him otherwise he would have killed all of us!" tears streamed down the chief's face as he gazed at a photo of his son. Upon closer look, Lucy recognised him as the boat man who had disappeared the night before.

"Isn't that…" Lucy trailed off. Nobody would likely believe them if they said the man had been very much alive barely twelve hours ago.

"A ghost…" Gray muttered. Lucy frowned. It wasn't impossible but it was very unlikely. She felt an unsettling feeling sinking down in her stomach. She felt something big coming, she felt it in her gut. And her gut was never misleading.

The chief bowed his head. "Please, save this island! Before everyone fully become demons…"

"We won't let that happen!" Natsu shouted. "We'll figure something out."

The chief looked up with a shocked expression, as if he had never thought that there would be anyone willing to take the request. When he realized that Natsu, Lucy and Gray were in fact being serious, his face hardened with determination as he stared at the moon with hatred in his eyes. "There is one way to lift the curse. Please destroy the moon."

000

"_Please destroy the moon,_ he said!" Ria fumed. "How in the world are we going to do that?! Hop onto a rocket and drop an atomic bomb onto the surface? Oh wait, they don't even have those in Earthland!" The small girl grumbled as she made herself comfortable in her sleeping place on top of the drawer next to Lucy's sleeping place.

"A rocket?" Natsu asked.

"Atomic bomb?" Gray repeated.

Lucy sent them a look that said 'don't worry about it'. "They're technologies from another world I stumbled across. With their brains alone, they created truly powerful tools that even exceed some magic." Natsu and Gray seemed impressed. For them, it was probably hard to imagine anything more powerful than magic. But Lucy had seen with her eyes. Although they might not be as powerful as some magic, they were enough to exceed even Natsu's destructive fire magic.

"But Ria's right, it would be rather impossible to destroy the moon. Disregarding the possibility of whether or not it can be done, the consequences would be too great," Lucy said.

"Yeah. Who knows how many punches it would take," Natsu added.

"Don't be stupid," Gray snapped, "There's no way we can even get close to the moon, let alone destroy it."

Natsu turned to Lucy with expectant eyes. "You can teleport us there."

"There are limits to my powers you know, Natsu-san."

"Then Happy."

Happy shook his head violently. "No way. That's not happening."

"Then Ria."

"You're kidding right?" Ria deadpanned.

"Well, we can't exactly tarnish Fairy Tail's name by accepting the job and then backing out of it," Natsu argued.

"Who said we're backing out, Natu-san? The request was to save the island. As long as we lift the curse somehow, we've technically done our job."

"Ah, I like technicalities," Gray nodded. Natsu finally seemed convinced, though he looked a bit disappointed, probably because he wouldn't be able to destroy the moon.

Gray took off his shirt and threw it onto ground and continued to take off the rest of his clothes except for his underwear. "In any case, let's get some sleep first. Man, walking around the island all day after getting shipwrecked; I'm beat."

"Alright! We'll investigate the island first thing tomorrow," Natsu agreed as he flopped onto his futon with Happy. Gray followed Natsu's actions and stuffed his face into his pillow. Lucy climbed into her futon slowly and laid there until the two boys were asleep. Once she was sure that they wouldn't wake up, she got out of her cosy sleeping place and walked out of the door. Despite the chief's warning about the moon turning them into demons, she stood in the moonlight as she contemplated about the curse. She didn't mind the dark. Rather, she welcomed it. Between night and day, she honestly preferred the night mostly because there wasn't any sun but she treasured daytime because that was when she made all the fun memories with her friends.

"Couldn't sleep?" a small voice called out. Lucy immediately knew that it was Ria.

"Yeah. You know I can't really get any decent sleep at night."

Ria sighed, "But you won't sleep in daytime either," she stated. It wasn't a question; it was something that the small girl knew and accepted. But it didn't change the fact that Ria still worried about Lucy.

"I can't afford to sleep in daytime. What if I'm needed but I'm too busy asleep? What if Erza-san gets hurt but I'm not there to help? What good would I be if I'm asleep while everyone else is fighting and risking their lives?"

"You're strong Lucy but you're not invincible. You know that. I know that you haven't had some sleep in a while and that's not good. You may be unable to help while you're asleep but that's better than you collapsing in the middle of a fight and getting hurt. I just want you to start thinking of your own safety, Lucy," Ria said, her voice starting to sound slightly desperate.

Lucy looked at her friend who was on the verge of tears and sighed. "You're right Ria. I'm sorry for worrying you. I promise I'll get some sleep when I can."

"Thank you."

They stayed in that position for a while, just standing there and staring at the purple moon. It was Ria who first broke the silence.

"We should go in now before the moonlight affects us as well."

Lucy reluctantly agreed as she headed for the hut once more. She took one last look at the moon before walking in and climbing back into the futon. For her friend's sake, she desperately attempted to fall asleep. She counted sheep, she counted imaginary stars and she counted Erza in different armours. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she reached armour number sixty three and slowly fell asleep, welcoming the darkness overtaking her consciousness.

000

Lucy hopped from one foot to another. Even though she had only managed to stay asleep for two to three hours, that alone had refreshed her mind and had filled her body with barely containable energy. Ria was in a similar state, flying anywhere and everywhere and chattering non-stop. The two boys and Happy however, lagged behind listlessly, grumbling about it being too early. As soon as the sun was up, Lucy had immediately woken up the sleeping boys with violent shakes. Her body had been itching to do something and stretch her legs for hours and she couldn't contain it any longer. Besides, they had no time to waste.

"This is too darn early."

Lucy stopped. That was one too many complaint for the morning and she was getting slightly tired of hearing them. She turned to face the boys and pulled out a gold celestial key from her pocket dimension. It was the key of the Clock, Horologium.

"Open, gate of the clock, Horologium." From her silver magic circle, a grandfather's clock burst out and produced a pair of arms and a pair of legs. "Either Natsu-san or Gray-san can get inside Horologium and take a rest. I would really prefer if you stopped complaining," Lucy said, pointing a finger at the clock who obediently recited the time: 5.40 a.m. Natsu and Gray looked at each other. Without a word, both made a mad dash for the clock. Gray beat Natsu by a second and quickly shut himself inside the clock before Natsu could intervene. Ignoring Natsu's indignant shouts, she proceeded to walk ahead.

"'This isn't the most comfortable place though' he says," Horologium monotonously relayed Gray's comment.

"You can always get out Gray-san," Lucy replied easily, without looking back.

"Are you sure we can find a way to lift the curse without destroying the moon?" Natsu asked doubtfully as they continued to walk.

"I'm sure there's a way Natsu-san. Unfortunately for you, you won't be able to see how hard the moon is," Lucy said.

"'Besides, if the moon gets destroyed, how would we go moon viewing if there's no moon?' he says," came the clock spirit's voice as he trailed behind. Natsu looked as if he had been hit on the head with a hammer.

"You're right! Then there would be no limited-time-only Fairy Tail moon viewing steaks!" he shouted in realization.

"And I would never be able to go on a romantic walk at night with Erza-san," Lucy added.

"I guess we really can't destroy the moon," Natsu slumped in defeat. Obviously, the steak was too much of a sacrifice for him. They were snapped out of their thoughts when the ground shook and heavy footsteps were heard from nearby. With the sheer noise and strength of the footsteps alone, Lucy estimated the owner of the footsteps to be a giant. (Or something along that line) She mentally closed Horologium's gate and the clock disappeared without a word. Gray fell to the ground on his arse with a soft thump.

Turning 180 degrees, they were met by the sight of a pair of gleaming eyes and large furry arms. The large shadowed figure was, no matter how you looked at it, a giant rat. The rat chuckled deeply while sounding feminine at the same time. Lucy didn't like rats. Rats weren't tasty at all and she knew this from personal experience.

Lucy squinted at the giant rat. "Is that a maid uniform? That's disturbing. And wrong on so many levels," she said. The rat, as if sensing that something bad was being said about it, let out a loud squeal and emitted a strange gas that spread over the area. Natsu was instantly sent to the ground immobilised due to his superhuman smell.

"Oh my god, Lucy! Do you ever know when to keep your mouth shut?!" Ria screamed as she pinched her nose and made a dive for Lucy's pocket. At this, the blonde girl had the decency to at least look a bit apologetic.

"Sorry. It just slipped out," she turned to Gray who was still holding his nose as if he's life depended on it. "Since this is my responsibility, I'll take care of this rat. Please take Natsu-san and go ahead. I'll be with you soon." Gray looked hesitant to leave Lucy on her own but he nodded and slung Natsu over his shoulder. Once the boys and Happy were out of sight, she once again faced the rat, which was running towards her with its teeth bared in anger.

She easily leaped out of the way as the rat took a wild swing. Since the rat had a heavy build, its movements were slow, sometimes sloppy and all too easy to dodge. However, Lucy knew that if she were to get hit, the force wouldn't be anything to laugh at. She jumped back to avoid a leg sweep and as soon as she landed, she crouched down and put her palm against the ground. Immediately, four tendrils of silver ropes burst out of the ground beneath the rat and wrapped themselves around each arm and leg. The rat struggled against its binds but the more it struggled, the tighter the restraints became. With a high pitched scream, it once again breathed out the green gas from earlier. Thankfully, Lucy had anticipated this and had already surrounded her body with an airtight barrier that prevented anything outside the barrier from harming her body.

She teleported to the rat and stood on its head. She charged her hands with magic until both of them glowed bright silver. Lucy took a deep breath. She didn't necessarily like doing what she was about to do but she knew from experience that letting go any potential enemies was an unwise idea. Although her opponent was just a rat, she felt a human's presence on it and it definitely wasn't anyone from the village. This meant that people other than Fairy Tail members and Galuna island villagers were on the island and this rat could be their means of attack. She just couldn't risk that happening. Lucy bent down and touched both her hands on the rat's head at the same time and sent the magic crushing through its scull and into its brain. The sheer amount of energy rendered the rat unconscious.

Lucy jumped down from its head as she felt the rat's body losing its energy. She released the binds and watched as the rat fell lifelessly on its back, causing a small scale earthquake. Just to be sure, she took out her key of the Golden Bull and summoned Taurus. The spirit appeared with a jolly 'moo' and his usual greeting of a comment about Lucy's body. Before he could say anything more, Lucy sent him her 'serious' look. From the way his grin was wiped off his face, Lucy knew that he had understood.

"The rat, Lucy-san?" Taurus asked, looking at the fallen body a few meters away.

"Yes. Once you dispose of it, you are free to dismiss yourself."

At Taurus' nod, Lucy teleported herself into the air where she was able to survey the forest for Gray, Natsu and Happy. When she saw two distinct human figures walking towards a large temple, she wasted no time in teleporting herself to stand in front of it. She waved at her friends when they finally arrived after five minutes.

Gray looked at her in surprise. "How did you…" he paused and realisation passed over his face. "Oh yeah, teleporting. Stupid question."

"Did you beat up the rat? I wish I could have helped you but I really couldn't stand the smell," Natsu said, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the thought of the green gas.

"Yes," Lucy said carefully, "the rat won't be a problem anymore." Before the boys could ask any more questions, she jerked her head towards the temple and changed the topic. "Do you have any idea on what this is?"

Gray shrugged, "Dunno."

"Let's go in and find out!" Natsu shouted, running into the temple without a care in the world.

"Aye sir!" Happy yelled as he followed.

"Must be nice, having such simple minds," Ria mumbled as she peeked her head out of Lucy's pocket.

Lucy and Gray walked in after Natsu and immediately stopped to inspect their surroundings. The inside of the temple was messier than the outside. There were broken pillars and statues dotting the room and piles of rubble were littered all over the floor. It looked as if someone had let loose a rampaging bull on crack that was deprived of sex for at least two decades. Lucy stated as much and was promptly hit by Ria for once again speaking before thinking. As they travelled further in, they spotted several plates of stone with red moon engravings stuck to the walls.

"Something tells me that this temple is just what we were looking for. And we found it in less than two hours. That's pretty impressive," Lucy mused. The sooner they finished the mission, the less chance they had of facing Erza's wrath. Or at least the full brunt of it.

Natsu frowned as he walked around, looking at the mess of the ruins. "But seriously, this placed is really messed up. Is this floor even safe?" He experimentally stomped a few times, hard. The floor fell apart beneath them and they were sent tumbling into an underground area deep below the ground floor.

"Natsu you idiot!" Gray yelled, as he fell head first. Lucy acted quickly and reached out both her hands to grab her friends before teleporting them to the ground in a safe landing. It was then that she realised the floor was still falling above their heads.

"Shit!" she cursed. "Run, everyone!" They quickly moved to safety and watched as slabs of large stones crashed into the spot where they had been standing just seconds ago. Lucy looked around, noticing that they were in some sort of a cave. She brushed herself off.

"Since we're down here anyway, it wouldn't hurt us to explore a bit. We might come across something big," Lucy suggested. She led them through the nearest tunnel. It opened up to a huge clearing where a strange mist was covering the ground. She looked up and her eyes widened when she saw the cause of the mist. She could hear Natsu, Gray, Happy and Ria's shocked gasps she paid them no attention.

"What the hell is that…" Natsu muttered. In the middle of the clearing, a monster at least a thousand times bigger than them was trapped inside an ice case. The monster was still like statue; as if it wasn't even real but Lucy could tell that it was the real thing.

"Deliora…?" Gray muttered in disbelief. "What is a Deliora doing here?!" he sounded angry, sad, frustrated and confused all at the same time. Lucy watched through narrowed eyes as Gray approached the huge monster apparently called Deliora.

Natsu shook out of his daze and jogged to Gray. "You know this thing?" he asked in an uncharacteristically soft voice. Gray clenched his fists and looked at the ground. Lucy slowly joined them and put a reassuring hand on Gray's back.

The ice wizard took a deep breath to calm himself. "Deliora…the demon of destruction." He looked up at the Deliora. "He looks exactly the same as then. What the hell's going on?!" Deliora…Lucy had never heard of the monster before. But she could take an educated guess that it was probably a demon of the book of Zeref. Such dark creatures couldn't be from anywhere else. How Gray seemed to know the monster from his past was a mystery to her. The Gray in the other world hadn't mentioned anything about his past during the seven years Lucy had been his friend in Fairy Tail. She was pulled out of her thoughts when Ria frantically nudged her cheek. As she came to her senses, she realized that someone was approaching. She quickly pulled Natsu and Gray to hide behind a rock.

The sound of footsteps became louder and louder until two guys walked into the clearing. One of them strangely resembled a dog with dog ears and was shirtless. The other was short with spiky blue hair and had a pair of ridiculous eyebrows.

"This is where the voices were coming from," the eyebrow guy said, looking around him in suspicion. The dog guy made a sound of agreement. Or at least, that what Lucy assumed it was. "Toby, have you been sucking in the Moon Drip? You have ears and stuff."

The dog guy, Toby, immediately responded. "No! Get it through your thick head that these are decorations!" he shouted angrily. His voice was slightly annoying in Lucy's opinion. Still, remembering what the eyebrow guy had said, she turned to her friends.

_Moon Drip? _She mouthed questioningly. Gray shrugged and Natsu shook his head. Happy mouthed, _Maybe it's some magic potion. _Ria mouthed, _It might have something to do with the curse on this island. _Lucy, being able to read lips to perfection, nodded. The others however, simply looked at them in confusion. She put a finger to her mouth and nodded in Toby and Eyebrows' direction, indicating that they would have a discussion once they were gone.

"Yuka-san, Toby-san, I have terribly sad news," interrupted a female voice.

"Sherry," Eyebrows (now identified as Yuka) acknowledged. Toby waved and emitted a sound akin to a howl. "Someone killed Angelica," she continued with anger lacing her voice. Despite her posture, Lucy could tell that the girl was immensely upset. Her tone promised vengeance to the killer of 'Angelica'. Lucy took a wild guess that Sherry was probably talking about the rat from earlier.

"The rat?!" Toby yelled, sounding angry and surprised. In fact, the guy seemed to be permanently angry. Lucy winced when her suspicion was confirmed. Natsu, Gray and Happy looked at her in shock. She hadn't exactly told them how she had 'taken care' of the rat. Lucy gave them a look that told them to drop the subject.

Sherry looked up sharply. "She's not a rat! Angelica is…_was _a hunter who raced through the darkness. And…love!" she said with a dreamy expression. The expression soon turned sour as she glared. "But now she's dead and so is love! I will not forgive the person who had killed Angelica!"

"Intruders…huh?" Yuka said.

Sherry sighed, still depressed over Angelica's death. "Just when the moonlight's nearly gathered. Why did Angelica have to die?! Let's get rid of the intruders before the Cold Emperor hears of this. And for the sake of Angelica!"

"No one's doing it for the rat!" Toby shouted.

"We will give the intruders eternal death, like Angelica. In other words…love!" Sherry continued, ignoring Toby's interruption.

"You mean death," Toby said weakly. Apparently, he was no match for Sherry's weirdness.

Lucy signalled to Happy. The cat nodded and flew into the air discreetly whilst Toby, Sherry and Yuka were deep in conversation. He threw a pebble in the direction of the tunnel. The sound of it hitting the ground alerted them immediately and they wasted no time in chasing after the imaginary intruder. Once they were out of sight, Natsu, Lucy and Gray waited a moment to make sure they were not coming back before coming out from their hiding place.

"We should have captured them and interrogated them," Natsu complained.

"We could have but I think it's for the best if we find out a bit more before confronting them," Lucy said.

"More importantly, I want to know how they managed to find the place where the Deliora was sealed."

"Where it was sealed?"

"Yeah. This thing was sealed in an iceberg in the northern continent. My master Ur who taught me magic risked her life to seal it away." Gray clenched his fists. "I don't know what it has to do with this island's curse but this isn't something that should be here! Cold Emperor… you'll pay if you tarnish Ur's name!"

"Is it possible to melt this ice?" Lucy asked.

Gray shook his head. "No. Ur cast a spell called Iced Shell on the demon. This ice cannot be melted."

But obviously, these people have found a way. Lucy didn't have to say it to make Gray understand. There was still too much they didn't know. How were they going to melt the ice? Does this relate to the curse? Why are they doing this? So many questions. If they capture the three from earlier, Lucy was sure that at least some would be answered. But would it change anything? Lucy somehow doubted that.

"I think," Gray started, "I think that we should wait here until the moon comes out. I have a feeling that we'll get some answers if we do."

"Or we can just beat up those guys and interrogate them," Natsu suggested. Happy nodded, always supporting Natsu's argument.

"There's no guarantee that they would be able to answer all of our questions. We'll only be exposing ourselves. This way, at least we have the advantage of surprise," Ria said in a calm voice.

Natsu stomped the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. "But it's still morning! I'm gonna be bored out of my mind. There's no way I'm just staying here. I'm gonna go after them!" As soon as he finished his little declaration, he dropped to the ground and started snoring loudly.

Lucy looked at the sleeping boy in mild amusement. "I suppose this is my fault for waking Natsus-san up so early. Well, this way, at least we won't be hearing his complaints."

"Thank god," Ria muttered.

"Don't be so mean to him, Ria. I can understand how he feels. It's not as if I enjoy sitting in the same place doing nothing for over twelve hours," Lucy chided. Ria grinned cheekily and blew her a raspberry in response. Lucy sighed at her friend's immaturity. Ria really shouldn't be scolding Natsu about his childish behaviours.

Lucy sat down and pulled out a pack of cards from her pocket dimension. "Since we're going to be here for a long time, would you like to play poker?"


	6. In the wake of the Deliora

**Hi everyone, time for another update. Before we start, I'll answer some questions. **

**Kathi9000: Thank you :) that means a lot to me. I'll try my best to update regularly but I can't make any promises. Things just come up sometimes and I'm not a very organised person in general. However, like I said, I'll will continue to update so I'll be grateful if you can be patient and stick with me. Thanks for you support! **

**Guests: Yes, I'm saying they know poker because in ep 33 they had a casino and something similar to poker though it was probably a bit modified. But for the sake of this story, I'm saying that they know poker, as well as other traditional games. **

**Anyway, on with the story.**

* * *

"Checkmate."

Natsu groaned. He abruptly stood up, flipped the chessboard over and set it on fire before smashing it into pieces. Lucy watched with wary eyes. _There goes my chessboard. _After two hours of playing poker, they had moved onto chess. Unfortunately, the pink haired boy wasn't exactly the best at thinking over strategies and visualising the opponent's possible next moves in his head. Ria had been a much better opponent. Heck, even Happy did a better job than Natsu. Lucy had half a mind to say this to Natsu just because she was kind of upset that her only chessboard was now a pile of ash. If only Erza was there, Lucy lamented. Now _that _would be an enjoyable match, _in more ways than one._

Lucy blinked as her thoughts travelled to a rather inappropriate direction. She shook her head before the images flashing through her mind could become not so PG. She refused to believe that she was _that _kind of person. She was not perverse. But then again, she did think that Mirajane had her own appeal in many areas and…no! Damn, she desperately needed something to get her away from her own thoughts. Lucy reached pulled out the silver key of the Lyre and summoned Lyra.

"Hi Lucy! It's been so long!" Lyra greeted enthusiastically, waving her hand frantically. "Mou, you hardly ever call me!"

"Sorry Lyra, I've been a bit busy lately. Besides, I can only call you three times a month remember?"

Lyra sheepishly scratched her cheek, "Oh yeah." She quickly changed the topic, "so, what can I sing for you today?"

Lucy shrugged, "Whatever you feel like is fine."

Lyra squealed in joy as she immediately set herself up. Slowly, she began to strum a gentle melody on her harp. Its lilting quality and swaying tempo caused Lucy to closer her eyes with a smile. She remembered the song. After her mum's death, Lyra would often sing this song to her to sooth her lonely heart and stop her tears. It brought back pleasant memories of her family before her mum's death. She had kept these memories in the back of her mind for a long time but they were all being pulled to the front and she saw the images flashing before her mind's eye. She slowly opened her eyes as she felt the song coming to an end. Her eyes flickered to Gray who was sitting away from her and Natsu. She could tell that he was still upset and decided not to mention the tears running down his cheeks.

"Lyra, I think you should sing a more upbeat song now," Lucy quietly suggested. The spirit nodded happily before strumming a jolly tune on her harp. When her time was up, Lyra bid them goodbye with a wave and a hug for Lucy before disappearing with a 'poof'. The silence that fell over them this time around seemed all the more suffocating. Lucy could see that Natsu had decided that whining about being bored just wasn't worth his energy so he had once again fallen asleep. Lucy wondered how it was possible to be able to fall asleep so quickly. Maybe once upon a time, she could have done it, but not anymore.

"I can't take this anymore," Ria suddenly announced. She was in the middle of a lazy cartwheel in the air. "This is too boring. Let's do something. You have to say anything you associate with the word 'beautiful' that starts with each letters of the alphabet. I'll go first: Angels."

"Blood," Lucy said with a straight face. Ria sent her a sharp look that made Lucy falter. Okay, bad joke. It was meant to be funny in a self-deprecating sort of way but obviously Happy didn't understand the reference and Ria wasn't too amused. "Booties," she corrected with a smile, in an attempt to soothe the small girl's mood. It did the trick as Ria grinned and wiggled her eyebrows in a suggestive way. Lucy good naturedly rolled her eyes.

"Carp," Happy joined. Trust him to involve a fish reference in everything.

"Dairy products," Ria said as it came back to her turn.

Lucy continued without missing a beat. "Erza-san."

Ria snorted loudly. "Oh my god, I saw that one coming a hundred mile away. Sometimes, you can be so predictable Lucy."

"She liiikes her," Happy drawled.

"Indeed I do," Lucy nodded with an easy smile. It was quickly replaced with a grimace as she was once again reminded of their current situation. They had broken a rule and had technically disobeyed the master. Knowing Erza, they weren't going to be let off easily. Lucy sighed and shoved the thoughts to the back of her mind. There was no point in dwelling over her mistakes now. She continued to play the word game with Happy and Ria for a while until even that became boring. Happy drifted off to sleep next to Natsu and Ria was dozing off. Lucy gently placed her friend onto a slab of flat rock to allow her to sleep better.

Lucy estimated the time to be just after midday. What she was going to do for the rest of ten or so hours, she had no clue. She would join her friends and sleep if she could but the fact remained that sleep did not come easily to her. She looked over to Gray. He was still sitting close to the frozen Deliora but there were subtle changes in his posture. His shoulders were slumped and his head was hung low. His breathing was slow and deep, an obvious sign of slumber. She surveyed the cavern and realised that everyone was now asleep except for her.

She sighed and pulled out a book from her pocket dimension. She hadn't stored many in her space since she had not considered that she would have time to leisurely read books on an S-class mission. Apparently, she was sorely mistaken. She would have to read the book slowly. _Very very _slowly. She flicked to the first page.

000

Just as Lucy finished her seventh book, the whole cavern started to shake. She closed her books with a 'snap' and looked at the ceiling sharply. She observed as bits of rocks started crumbling down and into the deep pit where the Deliora was situated. The others slowly stirred awake at the noise of rocks hitting against each other.

"What? What's going on?" Natsu shouted as he immediately jumped to his feet. Happy groggily opened his eyes and looked around. Ria was surprisingly undisturbed. Gray also shot to his feet as if he had been poked with an electric rod. Almost immediately, a purple magic circle formed on the ceiling and emitted out a thick pillar of purple light directly onto the Deliora.

"Purple light…just like the moon," Lucy commented.

"What's going on?!" Happy shouted. Gray stared at the purple light in silent shock. However, he quickly snapped out of his daze and ran for the exit leading to the ground floor.

"Hurry! Find the source of the light!" he ordered. It was at this point that Ria finally woke up. She took one look at Gray, one look at the purple light and quickly added up the dots. Lucy waited for the girl to come to her senses fully. By the time Ria was fully functioning, Natsu, Gray and Happy were already out of sight. Lucy patted her shoulder and the silver haired girl complied without a word. Together, they teleported to the top of the temple. The place seemed to be a ruin of a circle arena and in the middle, a group of people wearing masks and robes stood in a circle and chanted foreign words. Lucy joined Natsu and Gray behind the half knocked down remains of the arena wall and observed.

"What the hell is that?" Natsu asked. Nobody answered his question because nobody knew what the answer was. One could only guess. Lucy looked up at the sky. As she had guessed, the light's source was the moon which hung directly above the ruined temple. But why was the light being shone onto the Deliora? It didn't make sense. She would need more information.

Lucy turned to Ria. "Do you think you know anything about this?" Ria frowned as she closed her eyes and concentrated. She opened her eyes again after a while and shook her head regretfully.

"No. I don't have any data about purple moonlight."

Since Ria didn't know, that left the last option. Lucy honestly didn't want to do it but she was desperate for some answers. She pulled out a silver key: the key of the Southern Cross, Crux. The old cross appeared in all his wise glory and floated slightly above the ground with his legs crossed.

"What can I do for you today?" the old cross asked. Lucy gestured towards the gathering of masked people and pointedly looked at the purple moonlight.

"Can you explain what they're doing?"

Crux took one look at the moon and closed his eyes. He body slumped and he fell completely silent.

"Oi, is he sleeping?" Natsu asked.

Lucy put a finger to her mouth. "Shh. He's thinking. Crux knows about everything and anything. He can definitely answer some questions."

Crux suddenly awoke with a loud shout, startling everyone but Lucy and Ria who were accustomed to such behaviour. However, the blonde wizard couldn't help but cringe at the volume of the noise. This was exactly why she was reluctant to summon Crux. He was a bit loud. Apparently, the people in the middle hadn't heard anything, most likely too concentrated with their chanting.

"So? What did you find?" Lucy urged the cross. They didn't have all night to hear the answer.

"It seems that they're performing Moon Drip, which is a Belianese spell. It's a spell of focused moon energy and it is said to be able to break any spell at all," Crux informed. Just as he finished, he closed his eyes and his body slumped again.

"Is he thinking again?" Happy asked. Lucy closed the gate to Crux and sent him back to the spirit world.

"No. That was him actually sleeping."

"A spell that can break any other spell…" Gray muttered. "And they're shining that directly onto Deliora. You don't think..?!" his eyes widened as he arrived at the true motive of the people performing the Moon Drip. Lucy nodded grimly. Natsu looked between them with confusion in his eyes.

"What? What's going on? I don't get it," he complained.

"They're trying to melt the Deliora, you dumb flame-brain," Gray snapped.

Happy sweated nervously as he thought back to the giant monster from the book of Zeref. "That sounds a bit bad…"

"You don't say," Ria said.

"Damn! They don't even know the terror of Deliora and they're performing this reckless spell!" Gray growled in anger as he clenched his hands into a tight fist. Before anything further could be said between them, Lucy shushed them all as Sherry, Toby and Yuka came into view. They were led by a man wearing a white cloak and a helmet with goat horns protruding from it. Lucy almost burst into laughter at the ridiculous sight but she held it back by pressing her lips tightly together. Instead, she listened in on their conversation.

"Damn, I feel sleepy because we woke up during the day. We didn't even find the intruders," Yuka grumbled. Lucy inwardly rolled her eyes. _Maybe you would have if you had come back to the cavern. But no, search for the intruders by going to every corner of the island but never check the cavern, where the noise actually came from. _Lucy could already guess that these people probably weren't the brightest crayons in the box.

"It is sad Cold Emperor," Sherry said as she stopped next to the man wearing the stupid goat helmet. The Cold Emperor looked at the woman who took this as a sign to continue. "It appeared that there had been intruders during the day but they got away. Moreover, I can't find Angelica anywhere nor can I sense her presence so I have concluded that she was killed by the intruders."

"Intruders… it matters not. I will take care of them when the time comes," the Cold Emperor said as he subtly brushed aside the topic of Angelica. "When will the Deliora be revived?"

"It appears either today or tomorrow," Sherry replied.

"I see. How about the villagers? Is there any change in the situation?"

"It appears that they have called for help with their…condition. I suspect that the intruders are wizards from a guild taking on their request, whatever it may be."

There was a pause before the man threw out his arm and ordered, "In that case, eradicate the village. I'm not too fond of blood but I will not have any interruptions."

Toby, Yuka and Sherry bowed as they made a confirmative noise. Lucy could see that Natsu was becoming enraged.

"Eradicate the village?! Even though they don't have anything to do with this," Natsu whispered angrily. She predicted that any moment soon, the boy will jump out and demand a fight. That was just who Natsu was and it had its good points sometimes. Lucy could understand why he was so angry although she didn't feel as strongly about it as Natsu seemed to. Gray on the other hand, stayed silent throughout the whole ordeal. He seemed to be shocked though at what, Lucy had no idea.

"Alright! I'm sick of sneaking around!" Natsu shouted as he jumped into plain sight. "We're the ones who came to interfere!"

Lucy sighed as she stood up. She knew that this would happen. But she didn't entirely mind Natsu's way of doing things. Rather, it gave her a breath of fresh air from herself since she would have done nothing of the sort if she was alone on the mission. She waved at the shocked spectators with a smile. It was the polite thing to do after all.

"That mark! They're wizards from Fairy Tail," Sherry gasped as she snapped out of her shock. The Cold Emperor, however, seemed unfazed by their sudden interruption. If anything, he seemed amused by the turn of events. No, rather than amused, it seemed almost smug. Maybe Lucy was just reading too much into things.

"What are you doing? Go eradicate the village," he repeated. Lucy looked at him sharply. Judging from his behaviour, she hadn't thought that he would be the ruthless type.

"Why?!" Natsu asked in shock.

"Anyone who stands in my way is enemy," the man replied simply. _And he's pretty simplistic. I can pretty much guess how his mind works. It's black or it's white, huh?_

Natsu shouted in anger as he charged forward with his fist cocked back. Before he could take more than three strides, he was overtaken by an even angrier Gray who had his hands ready to perform his ice magic as he flew past Natsu and ran towards the man.

"Stop this stupid farce this instant!" Gray shouted as he leapt into the air and brought his hands down to the floor in one swift motion. Spikes of ice shot up from the ground and headed for the man and the trio in a rapid pace. They jumped back to evade the icicles. The man thrust out his hand in mid-air and copied Gray's action, causing an identical reaction as even spikier icicles clashed with Gray's more block-shaped ones. Both side shattered at the same time from the impact and sent particles of ice flying through the air.

Happy gasped, "He's an ice user as well?!"

"Gray's acting a bit weird," Ria observed. Lucy couldn't help but agree with her friend. Gray was acting weirder than usual. He seemed more hot-headed…almost like Natsu.

"Lyon!" Gray snarled with a fierce expression. Natsu and Happy's eyes grew wide as they stared at their long-time comrade. Even Lucy was a bit surprised, despite having had a tiny suspicion earlier. She hadn't expected her suspicion to be true though. Now the question was, how exactly did Gray know this man?

"Damn you…do you even realize what you're doing?!" Gray asked, his voice rising up in volume.

Lyon chuckled. "It's been a while, Gray. To think you'd be one of the wizards the villagers had called. Did you come here knowing this or was it pure coincidence? Not that it makes a difference."

"An acquaintance of yours, Cold Emperor Lyon?" Yuka questioned.

Lyon ignored his question. "Get going. I'll take care of this myself."

"Hah!" The three chorused before disappearing with a flash.

"Oh no you don't!" Natsu shouted as he started running towards the village.

"Natsu! Don't move!" Gray yelled after him.

But he was too late. Lyon had already started casting his spell. Natsu looked around himself frantically as frost surrounded him. Just as a bit of ice started forming on his body, Natsu disappeared from the frost. Lyon looked startled for a second before he quickly masked his expression. Natsu now stood a few meters away, looking around in confusion as he noticed that he was no longer in the middle of the mist.

A fraction of a second later, Lyon was sent flying back and crashing into the ruins. In his old place stood Lucy who lowered her fist and sent Gray a meaningful look.

"I'll leave him with you, Gray-san," Lucy said before reappearing at Natsu's side. She put a hand on his shoulder and sent Natsu a silent message. Natsu nodded in understanding.

He turned to Gray and thrust his fist into the air. "You better beat him up good, Gray! Or I'll come and kick both of your asses!"

Gray blinked out of his surprise and smirked. "I don't need you telling me that! You better protect the village and not sully Fairy Tail's name or I'll come and beat you up!"

Lucy smiled back. "There's no need for you to worry about us. Just concentrate on your fight, Gray-san."

"Yeah, you better win Gray!" Ria yelled from Lucy's pocket. Happy nodded in agreement and with that, they disappeared.

"I see," Lyon said as he dusted himself off. "It appears that I have underestimated your friends. That girl had quite a punch. I'm impressed she was able to tell that the spell I casted wasn't an ordinary one. Or was it mere coincident?"

"That wasn't a coincident Lyon. Underestimating Fairy Tail wizards will be your downfall," Gray replied back.

"I see you're as cocky as ever Gray. After all these years and you still never change."

"Could you quit acting like my superior, Lyon? You're no longer Ur's disciple," Gray bit back.

"And neither are you, Gray."

000

"Listen up, everyone! Soon, three people are coming to attack us and they're the cause of this curse. Make sure you're safe in your house and don't take one step outside unless we say so," Natsu said to the villagers gathered outside. Thanks to Lucy's teleportation, they had arrived at the village before the other three had and the village was safe and intact.

"Enemies?! Are they powerful?!" a villager shouted out in panic.

"We don't know but don't worry. We will definitely defend this village in the name of Fairy Tail. Once we capture them, they may even know a way to break your curse," Lucy said. At this, the villagers seemed much more reassured as they murmured amongst themselves, some even rejoicing at the prospect of breaking the horrible curse.

"What about the moon?" The chief asked frantically as he stepped forward. "Did you destroy the moon?"

Lucy sighed. She had forgotten about the chief and his obsession with destroying the moon. "No, but there may be another way of breaking your curse so there's no need to destroy the moon."

"That won't do! You must destroy the moon!" the chief raged. "Why can't you destroy the-" he was cut off as Lucy pressed two fingers just beneath his ear and put him to sleep.

"Sorry," Lucy apologised to the unconscious chief without actually feeling sorry. "It was for the best. I can't have you moving on your own and causing a distraction."

Just then, there was a loud noise of wood splintering into pieces. Lucy turned and saw that the trio had arrived.

"Hurry! Everyone get into your houses!" Lucy warned. Immediately, the villagers ran to the refuge of their home and firmly shut the door. An eerie silence filled the area as the opposing enemies stared at each other.

Then, without a warning, Natsu charged forward towards Yuka and Toby. He shouted, "Lucy! You take care of the other one! I'll take on these two."

Lucy nodded. "Please don't destroy the whole village Natsu-san."

"Yeah, otherwise there would have been no point in telling everyone to take shelter," Ria added.

"And if you finish the fight, could you please go and check up on Gray-san? I have had a bad feeling about him for a while," Lucy asked.

"Sure! Meet up in the village later!"

After a sharp nod, Lucy quickly teleported to Sherry and grabbed her arm tightly before whisking her far away from the village. They ended up in a forest near the coast of the island. Lucy slacked her grip and allowed Sherry to wrench herself out of her hand.

"What is the meaning of bringing me here alone?" Sherry questioned as she jumped away to gain some distance between them.

"It's just that as a Fairy Tail member, I can't allow our guild's name be tainted because of me. That's why I want to come clean," Lucy said.

"About what?" Sherry asked suspiciously.

"I killed your…Angelica, was it?" Lucy said. "You can hate me all you want and I won't blame you if you try to kill me. However, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to retaliate. I just wanted you to know that."

Lucy prepared herself for an attack, an accusing yell, promises to kill her, anything. What she definitely wasn't prepared for was tears. Lucy watched awkwardly as more tears trickled down Sherry's cheeks. If there was one thing she couldn't handle, it was people crying. A monster, she could handle any day but give her a crying girl and she was at a loss. Was she supposed to pretend she wasn't there? Was she supposed to offer words of comfort? If she had to choose, it would be the first option because she had no clue how to comfort crying people. But since she didn't know what to do, she simply watched in silence.

Finally, Sherry spoke up. "How dare you, young lady?!" she choked out through her tears. "Reitei-sama's trust in me has already fallen like a rock because of you and now Angelica too…I won't forgive you!"

"Oh..uh.." Lucy scratched her cheek. What now?

"Idiot!" Ria hissed, "she's going to attack you! What are you doing just standing there?"

Sherry furiously wiped her tears. "Wood doll!" A pink magic circle appeared and a shadow casted over Lucy. She turned around to see a tree moving towards her with its branches outstretched. When it was close enough, the tree swung down its thicket branch at Lucy. She easily evaded the attack and watched the tree's movements with interest. Giving life to inanimate objects? No, that wasn't it. She had a theory but would need to test it out.

She pulled out Taurus' key. "Taurus!" The spirit appeared with his usual gusto, swinging his large axe enthusiastically.

Sherry's eyes widened. "A Celestial wizard. And it's one of the Zodiac gates! Then how can she use teleportation magic as well?" she muttered to herself.

"Lucy-san! This is the second time today that you've summoned me. You must be in a dire situation," Taurus commented. He then ran an appreciative gaze up and down her body. "As always, you've got a really nice body! Although I would prefer a revealing dress, I could get used to trousers and T-shirts just for you."

"How considerate," Lucy deadpanned.

"Speaking of T-shirts…" Taurus trailed off as he stared pointedly at Lucy's T-shirt.

Lucy looked down at her blue shirt. A golden saxophone was printed in the middle and underneath it said: 'I feel do damn blue' in bold, black font. "What about my shirt?" she asked.

"You have a bad taste as always," Taurus said. Ria silently disagreed. She for one really liked all of Lucy's T-shirts.

The blonde wizard frowned, "What, no I don't…you know what, it doesn't matter. Anyway, get rid of the moving tree and stay still. I want to test out a theory."

"Moo!" he replied and shot forward. He sliced down the tree in one movement and then stood still as ordered.

"Hm! Celestial wizards are a disadvantage against me," Sherry said as she smirked. This made Lucy's theory almost certain. Now she just needed to have evidence. She gestured for Taurus to attack Sherry. He obliged and ran towards the pink haired girl. Suddenly, he stopped. Lucy watched with attentive eyes. Slowly, Taurus turned around and charged towards Lucy with his eyes glowing. Just as he was about to reach her, Lucy raised her hand and dismissed the spirit.

"I'm sorry Lucy-san…" Tarus said, "I don't know what came over me."

Lucy shook her head. "No, you did your job Taurus. Thank you." Taurus gave her a thumbs up as he faded away. She looked Sherry directly into the eyes. "It looks like my theory was right. You're able to control anything but humans, am I right?" She didn't need a verbal confirmation. Sherry's shocked look said it all.

"What…how did you close the gate?! Weren't gate closures supposed to be done by the spirit and the summoner together?! I didn't think that there would be a Celestial wizard capable of doing that. I've miscalculated."

"What you don't understand," Lucy started as she slowly started walking towards Sherry, "is that this isn't even me trying. If I choose to, I can beat you in a heartbeat or even kill you just as easily. But I've taken an interest in your magic. I need you to show me more."

Sherry subconsciously took a step back. Realizing what she was doing, she scowled in anger. "Don't be so cocky! I know that you're just bluffing!"

Lucy smiled, "Is that so."

"I'll get you back for what you did to Angelica! Doll control, rock doll!" Dozens of large rocks rose into the air and moulded together to create a large rock golem. The golem groaned and lifted its arm. It began to swung its arm down onto Lucy after gaining enough momentum. Upon making contact with Lucy's head, the hand broke into small pieces and the force of the blow sent the destruction all the way to its shoulder. Lucy had quickly put up a hard solid barrier around her body using her silver magic.

Sherry gasped in shock. "What did you do?!"

Lucy smiled in response. "That's my secret." She jumped high into the air and using purely her arm strength, sent the rock golem flying backwards with a punch to its face. Immediately, the face crumbled and Sherry, who had been standing on top of the golem, fell hard onto the ground. Sherry panicked and she thrust out her hand desperately, willing the rock doll to smash Lucy into the ground with its whole body. The rock doll obliged and jumped into the air above Lucy. Before she could counteract, there was a flash of glinting metal and the rock doll fell to the ground, sliced into two pieces.

Lucy blinked as she caught sight of Erza landing gracefully with a sword held in her hands.

She blinked again. Wait.

"Shit!" she cursed to herself. She had almost forgotten about Erza.

"Lucy, you're doomed," Ria said and with that, disappeared into her pocket, no doubt trying to avoid being caught up in Erza's wrath. Unfortunately, Lucy had to agree. She was indeed doomed. And so was Natsu and Gray. She would have to get through this alone for the time being.

She put on an extra cheerful smile as she approached the requip wizard. "Hello, Erza-san! It's great to see you!" She winced as she was met with an enraged glare. She slumped in defeat. "I shall accept any punishment given to me."

Just then, Happy's voice called out, "Lucy! Natsu asked me to check on…you…" he trailed off as he saw Lucy kneeling on the floor in front of a furious Erza. He didn't get very far before Erza caught him by his tail.

"Where's Natsu?" she asked Lucy in a steely voice. She would explain the situation and attempt to gain their help for the time being if she was talking to anyone else but she was talking to Erza and she knew exactly how the girl could get if someone were to break Fairy Tail's rules. So instead, she simply told the truth.

"Last time I saw him, he was fighting Yuka and Toby in the village," she replied. It was then that she caught movement from the corner of her eyes. From her peripheral vision, she could see Sherry trying to slip away without gaining their attention. Lucy inwardly cursed. On one hand, she really shouldn't make Erza any angrier than she already was but on the other hand, it could prove to be troublesome if she let Sherry get away. In the end, her second argument won out and she quickly teleported to Sherry and pressed the back of her neck with enough force to put her to sleep. She then quickly reappeared next to Erza who gave Lucy a warning stare.

"We're heading to the village," Erza said. "Lead the way." While they walked to the village, Lucy explained the situation in detail. It didn't matter that Erza didn't response or express interest. It just mattered that she was listening.

By the time they entered the village, the villagers were already gathered behind the broken gate. Upon seeing Lucy returning, they collectively cheered as they thanked her for protecting the village. However, the cheers soon died down when they saw the suffocating atmosphere surrounding her and the female companion who stood behind her holding Happy. They wisely dispersed and steered clear of Lucy and Erza. Lucy led her to their lodgings where they had slept in the previous night. Erza silently sat down with her legs crossed and Lucy followed, equally as silent. Happy cowered in the corner as he silently prayed for Natsu's safety.

000

Next day in the afternoon, the door opened and Gray walked in. His face was scratched up and he had bandages wrapped around his abdomen and his chest. He expressed his surprise when he saw Erza sitting crossed-legged, sporting the scariest glare he had ever seen.

"Erza?! Lucy and Happy as well!"

"Where's Natsu-san?" Lucy asked.

Gray shook his head. "I don't know. After I was defeated by Lyon, he came to the ruins and took me back here. I don't really remember anything after arriving at the village."

"Gray. I heard what happened from Lucy and frankly, I don't care. It doesn't change the fact that you have betrayed Master's trust. As soon as Natsu gets back, I'm dragging you back to the guild and you'll receive your punishments," Erza said in an absolute tone.

"What are you saying, Erza? If you heard about the situation, then you would know what's going on in this island!" Gray protested.

Erza looked up with an indifferent expression. "What of it?" Gray stared at Erza in shock. He knew that she would be angry but he hadn't ever seen Erza behaving like this before. "I came to bring back rule-breakers. I have no interest in anything else."

"Didn't you see how the villagers look like?"

"I saw."

"And you're just going to leave them looking like that?!"

"The request has been posted to every guild. Would it not be better to let other guild Wizards take on the job officially?"

Gray frowned. "I misjudged you, Erza!"

Lucy watched with a solemn expression as Erza slowly turned to stare at Gray with a piercing glare. "What did you say? Do you intend to break the guild rules as well?" She brought out a sword and pointed it Gray's neck. "you won't get away with it."

There was a pause and Lucy observed Gray intensely. This was a crucial moment for Gray and as much as she would always stick by Erza's side, she would also help Gray, if he chose to go ahead with the mission. After all, one of her primary beliefs was that one should reconcile with their past at some point in their life and that belief was what got her to Earthland in the first place.

Instead of flinching away as usual, Gray took hold of the sword and directed it to his chest. He levelled Erza's glared with a determined face. "Do what you must. This is a path I've chosen. It's something I've got to do." Gray slowly let go of the sword and walked to the door. "I'm going to finish this. If you're going to cut me down, do it." With that, he walked out of the door, leaving Erza gritting her teeth in anger.

Lucy smiled as she stood up. "This is Gray-san's path. A path that I also believe he should take so I will fully support him with his decision. Natsu and I took him here by force so the punishment should only apply to us. What will you do, Erza-san?"

Erza directed her glare at Lucy. This time, Lucy simply smiled back and waited for the requip wizard's answer.

Erza softened her glare into a stern frown. "This situation is unacceptable. We'll continue this after the present problem is solved."

Lucy grinned, "Right!" They walked out of the door and ran after Gray who could be seen in the distance. Once they caught up with the ice wizard, Erza stiffly explained that punishment will come after the completing the job. Gray then in turn explained his past with Ur and Lyon and told them that Lyon's goal was to defeat the Deliora and surpass Ur.

"Lyon has always wanted to surpass our teacher, Ur. Now that she's gone, he wants to defeat the Deliora, the monster that even Ur couldn't defeat in order to reach his goal," Gray explained.

"I see. Like I thought, his mind really is simple," Lucy said.

"But Lyon doesn't know…he doesn't know that although Ur is gone, she's still alive!" Gray said. Happy and Erza stared at him in surprise. They had thought that 'gone' implied dead but apparently Ur was still alive. It made next to no sense.

Ria popped out of Lucy's pocket now that Erza was no longer in a furious rage. "She's living in the ice…right?"

Gray looked at the girl in shock. "How did you know?"

"When you first mentioned that she had died defeating the Deliora with a spell called Iced Shell and that the ice surrounding the monster can't melt, something bugged my mind. It reminded me strongly of something I had heard in passing back on Earth. I forgot about it until now. The powerful ice spell: Iced Shell. Hardly anyone uses it because the price of casting that spell is that you become the ice," Ria explained.

"I see. Where is this Earth you mentioned? It sound a lot like our world," Erza questioned.

"It's the other world where I first joined Fairy Tail. Earthland and Earth are very similar. In fact, so far I can't detect any differences except the for fact that Elflings don't exist on Earthlan," Lucy said.

Ria looked down darkly. "Not that they exist on Earth. Not anymore," she muttered. Erza was just able to hear the inaudible mutterings and sent the girl an understanding gaze. Gray was the one who broke the silence that settle between them.

"Come on, let's head to the ruins," he said. Lucy nodded and put one hand each on Erza and Gray. After making sure that Happy was holding on, she teleported them to the ruins. As they stood outside the ruins of the temple, Lucy noticed that the temple was tilting to the left. She smiled at Natsu's surprisingly well thought-out plan. It was a shame that the boy only seemed to be able to use his brain in situations like this.

Before they could approach the temple, several glints coming from the woods caught her eyes. Relying on her instinct, she grabbed Happy and jumped into the air just in time to avoid several crescent shaped blades that had been hurtled at them. Gray and Erza did the same and deftly evaded all the oncoming blades.

"Who's there?!" Erza demanded as she stayed on her guard. A large group of masked people emerged from their hiding place. It was the people who had been chanting in the ruins the night before.

"We've finally found you, Fairy Tail! We won't allow you to interfere with Reitei-sama!" one of the masked people shouted.

"Lyon's followers?" Erza questioned. Lucy surveyed their surroundings. Each path into the woods was occupied by a group of Lyon's followers. Other than the path to the temple, they were completely surrounded.

"Ah, they've got us surrounded," Lucy spoke her observations.

"Aye."

Erza drew out a sword from her extensive sword collection. She stood in front of the followers and blocked their path.

"Go, Gray. I'll take care of them. Finish your fight with Lyon," Erza said as she faced the followers.

"Erza…" Gray muttered. Erza, who had been threatening to cut him down only minutes ago, was now helping him. It was bizarre to say the least but he was still infinitely grateful. He nodded with a determined face. This time, he would not lose against Lyon.

Lucy grinned, "Well, I guess I'll stay here with Erza-san and sweep up the mess. Gray-san, show Lyon-san what a Fairy Tail wizard is all about!"

"Aye!" Happy shouted as he brandished his fish sword.

"You guys…" Gray slowly smiled. He was blessed to have the greatest friends in the world. Even though he had only known Lucy for a week, he felt as if she had been part of his family since forever ago. "Alright!" With that final shout, he ran inside the temple.

She turned to the group of followers who blocked the East path whilst Erza faced the ones blocking the North. They stood back to back as they inspected the steadily growing number of followers.

"How long do you think it'll take?" Erza asked as she readied her sword.

"I reckon around 4 minutes, if even that."

"Really? I think it'll be around 1 minute, if even that." As soon as Erza finished her sentence, she dashed forward and raised her sword. She swung down diagonally and applied enough force to deliver a slice followed by air pressure so great that sent all of the followers flying in all directions. Lucy took a moment to simply spectate the fight. Watching the redhead during the heat of battle was something that should be made as an official hobby. Because Lucy would take up the hobby with dedication. Seeing Erza be in her element was one of the things that made Lucy's days, watching her soar through the air with elegance yet deliver blows with an unmatched strength. Lucy swiftly dodged the blade that came flying to her face. She sighed at the interruption and she remembered that she had her own group to take care of.

With a click of her fingers, a large silver sphere was conjured and she willed it to suck all the followers inside. Once all of them were packed inside the sphere, she walked to the sphere and touched it with one hand. Along that hand, she sent a moderate spark of electricity and into the sphere. Immediately, energy cackled inside and made contact with the followers and promptly sent them all unconscious. By the time she was done and turned back to Erza, the girl was already finished with her side.

Lucy approached Erza and smiled. "It looks like you won that bet, Erza-san. It really did take us around 1 minute. It seems that I'm no match for you."

Her smile dropped as she felt the ground rumbling. She turned to the temple and her eyes widened as she witness the temple slowly restore itself and readjust to the right position.

"What in the world…?" she muttered. How was it possible? Lucy had never seen such magic before. The ruins hadn't simply moved on its own and rebuilt itself. No, it was almost as if the temple had returned to the state it was before Natsu had destroyed half of it. But surely, such magic wasn't possible. As she was racking her brains for a type of magic related to time, purple light shot down to the temple from the sky that hung in the evening sky. Lucy blinked. Was it already evening? She hadn't noticed.

She shook her head to rid herself of pointless thoughts. "Erza-san, I will teleport inside and try and see what's going on. Please head to the top of the temple and stop the person who's doing the ceremony."

Erza nodded but before she could reply, a raspy voice interrupted, "Wait."

They turned to see an old woman being supported by a young man in his twenties. The old woman's hand trembled as she pointed at them determinedly. "I won't let you interfere with Reitei-sama's plans."

"Those head bands," Erza said. "you are the citizen of Brago, aren't you? Have a score to settle?"

Erza blinked as Lucy approached them and quickly knocked them both unconscious using her magic.

"Erza-san," Lucy called out. "I will meet at the top of the temple," she said and disappeared. Erza looked at the limp body of the old woman who Lucy had taken out with no hesitance. She made a mental note to herself to be careful of Lucy's ruthless side.

000

By the time Lucy had found Natsu, he was in a fierce fight with a short, skimpy looking man wearing a furry mask. She approached Natsu who was sprawled across the floor with bruises covering his stomach and face.

"Who is this, Natsu-san?" she asked, looking at the man with suspicion.

Natsu grunted as he got to his feet. "Dunno but he somehow managed to restore the pillars I broke down!"

The man inspected Lucy with a grin. "Oiya? It seems that I am outnumbered. That's not very fair now, is it?"

Lucy stared hard at the man. She narrowed her eyes. "More importantly, why does your presence feel almost identical to the presence of that woman in the magic council? What was her name again? Ultra? Ultiara?" she ransacked her brain but came up with nothing. In her state of concentration, she missed the shocked expression that crossed the man's face for a fraction of a second. Lucy shrugged. "No matter. Who are you and what's with that magic you used earlier? I've never seen anything like it before." _Not that my magic is exactly normal, _Lucy thought to herself.

Before the man could reply, an ear-splitting noise filled the air and the ground shook violently. Lucy stared in shock as the ice surrounding the Deliora cracked and fell apart. She had hoped that Erza would get there in time to stop the ceremony but it was apparent that she had miscalculated the amount of Moon Drip that was needed to melt the ice. If the monster woke, things would turn troublesome. At her current level of magic, she wasn't sure if she would be able to defeat the monster. The Deliora continued to roar as more and more ice melted. Lucy clicked her tongue.

"Natsu-san! I'll be heading to the top. Please take care of things down here," she said and teleported to the top. When she saw Toby bowing continuously by himself, she quickly kicked him away. Just then, Erza ran into the clearing.

"Did we…put a stop to it?" Erza asked.

"It's already too late," Toby said weakly. "The ceremony has completed."

Another deafening roar pierced the air.

"Dammit!" Lucy cursed. She grabbed Erza and Happy before teleporting back to the cavern where the Deliora was. Lyon was lying on the floor defeated. Gray and Natsu stood in front of the Deliora with Natsu blocking Gray's path. His fist was clenched, as if he had just punched something. They were there just in time to see the Deliora slowly starting to fall apart. Lucy stared at the scene, feeling confused. What had happened?

Natsu took a step back in shock. "What the hell? That wasn't me."

Gray and Lyon watched with their eyes wide as bit by bit, the Deliora crumbled and fell to the ground.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Lyon muttered. "Deliora was already dead…" Lyon clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. "Ur's magic has sapped its strength throughout the years. All we saw was its last moment." He slammed a fist against the ground. "I can't compete with Ur! Even when she's dead, I can never surpass her!"

Lucy turned away as tears trickled down his and Gray's faces. She never was good with crying people. Instead, she watched the melted ice as it mixed with the streamed and flowed into the sea.

000

"Yippeee! With that, we've finally completed our mission!" Natsu shouted in excitement.

Happy joined in with the celebration. "Aye sir!"

Lucy and Gray smiled along until they felt a sinister stare directed their way. They all froze as they were reminded of their impeding punishment. _On the bright side,_ Lucy thought, _at least we're not being kicked out of the guild._

"In any case, you still haven't finished your job. Wasn't the request to cure the village from their curse?" Erza asked.

"Yeah but now that the Deliora's dead, the curse should have lifted!" Natsu said.

Erza crossed her arms. "No, that wasn't the Deliora's influence. The tremendous magical power of the Moon Drip has caused disaster to befall the people of the village. The fall of the Deliora shouldn't have changed the situation."

Natsu shrugged. "Well, let's hurry up and cure them then."

"But how, you idiot?" Gray snapped. He turned to face Lyon, who was resting against a rock few meters behind. "Oi Lyon!"

Lyon stared back with a blank face. "Just so you know, I have no idea." At Natsu's cry of disbelief, he continued. "Three years ago when we came, we knew that there was a village on this island. But we didn't interfere with the village and they didn't come to see us even once."

"Three years…not even once?" Erza repeated. Her expression was the one of deep contemplation. Lucy could practically see the gears turning in the redhead's brain. She smiled. If there was anyone who could figure out the curse, it was Erza. Lucy thought that the girl was too smart for her own good. And too pretty. And too nice. And too strong. And too wonderful in general. Okay, now she was just getting side-tracked.

In any case, Lyon had a good point. The fact that they had been collecting Moon Drip for three years yet no one had gone to investigate during all that time was too strange. Not to mention that Lyon's group were probably the closest to the Moon Drip the whole time so it was odd that they didn't seem to be affected. Things just weren't adding up.

Lyon voiced her thoughts regarding the Moon Drip. "Becareful," he added at the end, "they're definitely hiding something." He looked to the side. "Although from now, it's your guild's business."

Natsu bristled at this. "I don't think so! You're the one who destroyed the…" he was cut off by Erza.

"That's enough. They have their own version of justice," she said, thinking back to how Toby had told her that their parents had been taken away by the Deliora. "There's no need to criticize their past actions."

Lucy fell completely still at this comment. She thought back to all the wrongs she had committed in her past. She could only hope that she would be forgiven just as Lyon had been once her full past comes to be revealed. She had no doubt that the time would come soon but she was far from ready. She shook her thoughts away. Right now, she needed to be concentrating on her mission.

"Let's go," Erza announced.

Natsu followed as he voiced his concerns. "You say that but how are we going to lift the curse?"

"Who knows," was Erza's reply. To anyone else, she looked as if she had no plans and was just going with her instinct but Lucy knew the girl well enough to recognise her tone. Erza had figured it out. It was then that Lucy was struck with an idea.

"Guys, I'm going to head back to the village ahead of you. I have something to take care of," she said to her friends. She ignored the questioning looks and waved goodbye before teleporting away.

Gray fell behind as Erza, Natsu and Happy started their walk to the village. He stared at Lyon who immediately glared back.

"What are you looking at?" Lyon demanded fiercely.

"Go and join a guild somewhere. You'll gain friends and rivals and I know you'll find a new reason to live," Gray said as he thought of his own family in Fairy Tail. Lyon looked surprised for a second but he quickly covered it up with a frown.

"Hurry up and go already!"

Gray gave him a final smile before jogging after his friends, leaving Lyon to his thoughts.

"Guild…huh?"

000

"Lucy, why didn't you bring the others with you?" Ria asked as they appeared in the village.

Lucy grinned, "Just watch," she said and pulled out a golden key. "Open, gate of the Maiden, Virgo!"

From her silver magic circle, a pink haired girl wearing a maid uniform and a pair of shackles on her wrists appeared. Compared to her appearance while she was contracted with Duke Erverlue, her build was much more petite. Lucy had created a contract with the spirit some time ago and this was her first time summoning Virgo since.

"Is it punishment time, master?" Virgo asked. Lucy had told the spirit that she was free to call her by her name but Virgo had insisted on addressing her as 'master'. Well, it was either that or princess so Lucy hadn't really had a choice.

"Oh no, not at all, although we could do that later if you finish your job properly. Right now, I need to to dig a moderately deep hole right about there," she ordered, pointing at the patch of ground in front of gate which was surprising back to the way it had been before its destruction. Virgo nodded as enthusiastically as a stoic maid could get and immediately began to dig the hole.

Ria laughed as she realized what was going through her friend's mind. "Ah, I see. You're thinking of pulling that trick again on Erza aren't you? How do you know that this Erza would fall for it too?"

Lucy shrugged, "I don't but it's worth to try."

Virgo walked back to Lucy and presented her with the hole. "May I have my punishment, master?" she quickly asked in her monotone voice. Lucy rolled her eyes and nodded that she would deliver 'punishment' later. Virgo bowed. "I shall be eagerly awaiting my punishment." And with that, the spirit disappeared.

"Lucy, you got yourself another weird spirit," Ria commented. Lucy nodded in agreement. It was an unfortunate fact that none of her spirits seemed to be normal. She was actually starting to doubt the existence of a sane, normal spirit. Before she could get too distracted, Lucy quickly disguised the hole and waited. A few minutes later, the gate opened and her friends walked in, led by Erza. Lucy waited in anticipation and the redhead obliviously headed for the obvious trap. Gray had noticed the hole as well as Lucy's expression of anticipation. He shook his head at the childish behaviour.

As she had expected, Erza fell right into the hole with a loud 'Kya!'

Gray, Natsu and Happy's jaws dropped as they stared in disbelief. To them, it was impossible to imagine the tough Erza eliciting such a girly noise. On the other hand, Ria had busted out laughing and Lucy was too busy being in her own dreamland filled with Erza's cute 'Kya's. Without a word, Erza climbed out of the hole and headed for the centre of the village. The boys continued to stare after her, their brains still not able to comprehend what had just occurred.

Well, you learn new things every day.

000

Natsu vigorously gulped down flames after flames. After Erza had solved the mystery of the Galuna Island and had shattered the magical lens created by the Moon Drip's energy, the demons had regained their memories and had opened a celebratory feast after the returrn of the chief's son. Bobo had apologised for lying to them and had explained that it was the only way he could think of in order to save his village. Natsu had instantly forgiven him and that had been the end of that.

Currently, Lucy watched as three demon girls started talking to Gray and pulling him away from his spot to dance. She smirked. "Gray-san's always popular with those type of girls," she commented. She turned to Natsu and giving him a teasing grin. "What about you, Natsu-san?"

Natsu shrugged, "I'm not interested," he said and went back to his food.

Erza spoke up, "What about you, Lucy? What kind of girls are you interested in?"

Lucy started sweating at the sudden turn of conversation. She wasn't terribly good at talks like this. She had only asked Natsu as a joke since she knew his answer already but she hadn't considered that her joke would backfire so horribly. The first thing that came to mind was, _'your kind' _but she couldn't say that for obvious reasons.

She ignored Ria's snickers of amusement. "Oh, um…someone who's kind…I guess?" she trailed off awkwardly, fully knowing that her answer was extremely vague. She signalled Natsu and Happy to keep their mouths shut.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the village as the demons fell silent. Lucy turned to look at the cause and found Sherry and Yuka standing in front of them. This immediately caught her attention. Erza made a move to stand but she was stopped by Lucy who gestured for her to stay seated.

"Don't worry Erza-san, I don't sense any hostile intentions from their presence. I don't think they're here to fight." Then addressing the two, she asked, "What are you doing here?"

"We came to pay you back," Sherry answered. "We'll end this once and for all."

Natsu rose from his seat but Lucy stopped him with a look.

"So?" she prompted, "When are you guys going to apologize?" At their surprised looks, she smiled. "That's what you came here to do right?"

There was a pause until Yuka spoke up. "You're right. I know that this doesn't intone for our sins but we at least wanted to finish things properly."

"We heard from Reitei-sama. It's thanks to you that we were freed from our hatred for Deliora," Sherry said.

"So you guys were too…" Gray said.

"Yes. Our village was destroyed by Deliora so we decided to follow Reitei-sama who was going to destroy Deliora. But that is no excuse to hurt innocent people in the process. We were so blinded by our hatred that we became no better than the Deliora."

There was a solemn silence until Natsu jumped in and cheerfully clapped them on their shoulders.

"You guys should join the feast!" he exclaimed with a grin.

"We were your enemies just moments ago!" Yuka said in surprise.

Lucy smiled at Sherry. "Well, since I killed Angelica, you can count this as getting even and we can start from the beginning. You should join and have fun."

Sherry hesitantly smiled back. Lucy took this as a positive sign. Natsu wasted no time in dragging the two into the party and sat them down in front of a huge table with lots of food.

"Let's party!"

000

Perching on a tree branch looking over the village was the short man by the name of Zarti. He grinned wickedly as he took off his mask and morphed into a young woman with long black hair and dark eyes. Her name was Ultear Milkovich, a member of the magic council. The man- turned-woman watched the jolly scene below her with a smirk. When her eyes caught the form of Lucy, she paused. Although the fire user boy had brief suspicions of her true gender due to his superhuman senses, the girl had been more interesting. Ultear wasn't sure how the girl had correctly identified her by taking one look at her but she was intrigued.

Lucy…Natsu…Gray…Erza…she would keep an eye on those four.

000

"We're back!" Natsu cheered as they entered Magnolia.

"Aye!" Happy yelled. Ria joined in as she flew around restlessly. Lucy smiled at the sight. In truth, she too was happy to be back home after the Deliora incident. She just didn't show it as much as Natsu.

"But damn…after all that hard work, we just get one key," Gray complained. Lucy had been the only one who got a reward out of the mission. Although they hadn't accepted the money prize, Erza had asked for the key instead when the chief had insisted on rewarding them. The key was a gold one, the gate to Sagittarius, at that.

"It wasn't a proper job," Erza reminded him. "This much is about right."

"Right Gray-san. No complaining," Lucy said with a small smirk. "You got to meet your long lost brother. Wasn't that a reward in itself?"

"Shut up," Gray grumbled. "And who the hell decided that Lyon's my brother?!"

"Easy going aren't you? Are you forgetting that you have punishment when you get back?" Erza said, causing everyone to immediately freeze. "Well, I think you should be forgiven for what happened this time but master will be the judge of that. I have no intentions on defending you."

"We're not going to do _that _are we?" Happy asked fearfully.

"We most likely are going to do _that_," Lucy said grimly. Hearing her confirm this fact, Gray went completely pale and Natsu sweated enough to fill a bucket.

"Noooo!" he wailed, "Anything but _that_!"

Erza silently smirked as she dragged away the two boys by their collars. Lucy smiled at the scene fondly and tilted her head up to see the sky. She immediately regretted her action as the sunlight hit her eyes harshly and caused them to burn.

_Damn, I hate sunny days. _


	7. Accidents can happen (once or twice)

**I'm back! And this time with a relaxing, humorous and lighthearted chapter. I dub it: chapter 6.5. It's sort of an interlude before we move onto the Phantom arc which will undoubtedly take a few chapters. In other words, enjoy the peace while you can. This is based on the anime episode 19...I think. **

* * *

It was the second day after the Galuna Island incident. Team Natsu, sans Erza, had completed their punishments and although Makarov had been merciful and had not dished out _the _punishment, they had been forced to clean the guild building's every nook and cranny which in Lucy's opinion, was one of the worst punishments that could have be given to her. The blonde mage shuddered at the very thought of mops and buckets of soapy water. Never again. But other than that, all was peaceful in Fairy Tail once again. Or as peaceful as the rowdy guild could ever get.

In the background, Natsu and Gray's usual 'banter' could be heard and nobody even acknowledged the chairs and tables that were flying around, causing a safety hazard. Cana sat in her usual place by the bar drinking an excessive amount of alcohol from a barrel, Wakaba and Macao were once again lamenting about the current generation of mages and Elfman was predictably spouting nonsense about being manly which Lucy never really bothered listening to.

As for Lucy, she was pleased to find herself in a casual conversation with Fairy Tail's resident requip mage. The said mage was, for once, not consuming a cake of any kind which had caused Lucy to be initially cautious in approaching Erza. But all had been fine once she had spotted a plate of soufflé not too far away. Ria had tactfully left them on their own which Lucy was really grateful for.

"So Erza-san," Lucy started casually. "Are you thinking of taking on a job today?"

Erza thought for a second before shaking her head. "No, I think I will spend today rearranging my room and doing some spring cleaning. I've recently noticed that my armours are gathering some dust."

Lucy put on an enthusiastic grin. "What a coincidence! I was also thinking of cleaning my room today." At this point, she was lying right through her teeth. She had no such thoughts prior to the conversation but, she reasoned with her brain, her bookshelves were actually becoming quite messy now that she thought about it. Plus it wouldn't hurt her desk if she gave it a little wipe now and then. In fact, she realised that her room really did need some cleaning, in all seriousness. All the horror she had felt previously regarding cleaning were thrown out of the window.

"Is that so? If that's the case, perhaps we could clean our room together. I'm sure that two pairs of hands are much more efficient when it comes to cleaning," Erza said with a smile.

"Not to mention that I suck at cleaning and being neat. I would be grateful if Erza-san could help me with a few things," Lucy added sheepishly. At least she wasn't lying about being bad at cleaning. As a child, there had been countless of maids who filled such jobs and she hadn't really felt the need to clean during the time she was living alone. Occasionally, Lisanna or Wendy would get sick of seeing books and papers littering her bedroom floor and would clean up for her. But neither of them was there with her anymore so Lucy would have to start taking care of herself.

"I don't mind. Then shall we start heading towards Fairy Hills now? It would be best if we started cleaning early," Erza said as she stood up. Lucy followed and carefully hid her shit-eating grin. She would be alone with Erza for the whole day! Although they would just be cleaning and tidying up, it didn't change the fact that they were going to be alone. For the whole day. Lucy was feeling rather pleased with life in that moment.

"Look what I found!"

The moment did not last very long. Lucy looked at Erza and saw that it was already too late. Her attention had been caught. Lucy scowled in displeasure and with deep breaths; she very slowly turned to face Natsu who was waving around a request sheet.

"Look! It's a really strange looking request," Natsu said as he examined the paper. A small crowd formed around the boy, each trying to read what was written on it. Lucy sighed in defeat when she saw Erza walking towards the crowd. There goes her plan for the day. Lucy knew that at this point, she might as well see what was causing all the fuss.

It was a strange looking paper with READ THIS written in cursive font at the top. Beneath this instruction were a bunch of ancient words that made no sense and at the bottom was the written reward of five hundred thousand jewels. And just for reading a passage. If this didn't scream suspicious, Lucy honestly couldn't fathom what did.

"Guys, we're not actually going to read this right? No matter how you look at it, it screams suspicious," Ria said, fluttering around the rapidly dispersing crowd. It seemed that everyone had lost their interests. Well everyone except the members of Team Natsu with Lucy included. Despite her sceptic nature, she was also a curious person at the core and this strange request definitely peaked her interest. She hoped that it was at least worth sacrificing a day alone with Erza for.

Undeterred by Ria's comment, Natsu proceeded to read the instructions. He squinted at the paper. "Please decipher the meaning behind these words. If you figure it out, 500,000 jewels will belong to you." He directed his excited grin at Happy. "Hear that? If we do this, we'll be able to have a really nice dinner tonight!"

"Aye! I want lots of fish!" Happy said, equally as excited.

"Wait, aren't these ancient letters?" Gray pointed out, examining the writing inside the upturned triangle. "Who the hell can read this?!"

"But there's a translation into modern characters next to it," Happy said.

"Oh! Then I can read that!" Natsu exclaimed, once again getting riled up. "Let's see…_Uugo deru rasuchi borokamia…_" One could practically see Natsu's eyes swirling around in confusion. "Damn! I don't understand this at all!"

Erza peered over his shoulder and read over the words. She too, had no idea what the text was saying. "Perhaps this is a job more suited for Levy," she suggested. No sooner than she had finished uttering those words, the paper started emitting a strange glow that surrounded the six of them.

From the sidelines, Cana watched with wary eyes. "Something is about to happen, I can feel it." She took another gulp of her alcohol. "Dammit, why can't this guild be quiet for one second?!" she grumbled to herself.

Romeo was far cry from being upset. "Wow, magic is sooo awesome," he said with an awestruck face as he watched the glow fade into nothingness.

Lucy blinked. For some reason, her chest felt very bare and she was wearing a…scarf? She looked down at her body and nearly choked when she saw a pair of familiar loose black trousers and an unmistakably flat chest that was out in the open. Her eyes widened with realisation and it was then that she noticed the consistent heat coursing through her entire body.

"What the hell's going on?" she muttered to herself. She turned to Ria who was at the very moment, plummeting towards the ground at a rapid rate. Lucy quickly shot forward and caught the falling girl. "Ria, what's wrong?" she asked in concern. It was only slightly disturbing to hear her own voice come out as Natsu's.

"The hell's happening?!" Ria shouted, frantically patting herself all over her body. She glared up at Lucy. "What the hell did you do, you flame-brain?!"

Lucy carefully and very slowly dropped the girl to the ground and stared at her in disbelief. "…Gray-san?" she asked hesitantly. This stopped Ria's angry rant and the small girl stared up at Lucy with scrutinizing eyes.

"Is that…Lucy?" Ria, no, Gray asked. Lucy nodded mutely. She had a feeling she knew what was going on.

On the other side of the table, Gray's voice exclaimed. "Whoa! Why is the table so big and why am I so cold?"

"WHOA! I feel so strong and really awake," Lucy's voice shouted enthusiastically. "Ow! But my eyes hurt for some reason?!"

Happy stepped forward with his hands stuck to his sides. His face sported a stern frown. "What in the world is all this fuss about?!" he said, his voice firm and commanding. Lucy blinked. _So that must be Erza-san. _When her brain finally caught up with what she was seeing, she nearly blanched. Since Erza was in Happy's body, Lucy was technically crushing on Happy. That was a very very disturbing thought. Lucy made a promise to herself that she would not think of such thoughts ever again.

While this was happening, Erza walked up to Lucy with a childish smile. "Look Natsu! I've got two huge boobs stuck to my chest!" Erza, no, Happy pushed up the said boobs and smiled at Lucy.

Lucy firmly squeezed her eyes shut. _This is not happening._ She chanted her mantra inside her head again and again. _This is just Happy in Erza-san's body._ She quickly reminded herself of this fact and also once again reminded herself that it would be wrong on _so many levels _if she were to…lust after _Happy._ Ew, no. Just…no. Just the thought sent goose bumps all over her body. In a bad way. A very, very bad way.

Erza watched Happy groping his…her chest with a horrified expression. "Stop that!" she shouted, jumping into the air and kicking Happy. She only realised that she was technically kicking herself when she felt the jolt of pain shooting her small furry leg when it came into contact with hard metal armour. Erza stared at her paws in shock. "What is with this cat form! I don't remember requipping into this!

Meanwhile, the rest of the guild watched their friends with no little amount of confusion. 'Lucy' was prancing around the room cackling and lifting heavy tables with one hand, 'Gray' was seemingly tripping over thin air every five steps, 'Ria' was subconsciously starting to take off her T-shirt only to realise what she was doing and freezing in place. 'Natsu' was quiet for once and was calling everyone's name with –san at the end, 'Happy' was in an intimidating stance with a cross expression marring his face and finally, 'Erza' was walking around with a childish glee and showing everyone her breasts. To say that everyone was acting out of character would have been a huge understatement.

They watched with dropped jaws as the chaos ensued. This would be a day to remember, that was for sure.

"What the hell's going on!" Gray shouted and despaired at how small and feminine sounding it came out.

"Ahhh! Everything's so big! And I can't fly!" Ria shouted as she ran around the guild and tripping everywhere, her mind not adjusted to having such a big body.

"Do you still not realise it yet?!" Erza said as she commanded everyone's attention as best as she could while she was in a cat's body. "Our minds and bodies have switched places!"

There was a deafening silent. Until a collective shout of disbelief filled the air.

Natsu rushed over to Erza. "What do you mean, Happy?!"

"I'm Erza!" the requip mage angrily corrected.

Lucy cleared her throat to gather everyone's attention. She sighed, trying to ignore how wrong it sounded. She looked around at everyone. "Erza-san is correct. I had realised this earlier on but I was in a state of…shock, shall we say. Regardless, according to my observations, it seemed that the six of us was split into three pairs and each pair swapped minds with each other. Natsu-san and me, Gray-san and Ria…" she hesitated slightly before announcing the last pair with some difficulty. "And finally, Erza-san and Happy-san."

Chaos once again descended over Fairy Tail. It was during this that the unmistakable voice of Master Markorov was heard from the entrance.

"The magical words of Umpera," he announced, causing everyone to fall silent and direct their gaze at the old man. "You have activated Changeling."

Lucy had never before felt so relieved to see the Master as in that moment. She felt like she was gazing upon her guardian angel that was there to finally make her nightmares go away. Or in other words, turn them all back to normal.

"By reading the spell, you have activated Changeling and have caused the people in the vicinity to swap minds," Makarov explained calmly. "And not only have you swapped minds, your powers have swapped as well."

Everyone gasped at this new revelation. Everyone except for Lucy who merely narrowed her eyes. That wasn't good news. Not at all. If Natsu were to stay in her body with her powers for a long period of time, Lucy was sure that consequences would follow and by no means were they good ones.

"One last thing!" Makarov called out. "If you don't undo Changeling within thirty minutes after its activation, you won't ever be able to go back to normal. Or so the legend goes…" he finished with a mysterious smile.

Oookay. Things were getting serious now. Natsu panicked and dashed to Mirajane who was watching the spectacle with a somewhat amused expression.

"How long has it been so far?!" he asked urgently. Nobody dared to mention how weird it was to see 'Lucy' being in such a state of panic.

"16 minutes so far," Mirajane answered. "You have 14 minutes left."

Lucy inwardly groaned. That wasn't a lot of time at all. She refused to think about the 'what ifs' if they were to be stuck in their current bodies.

"Master! Isn't there a spell to change us back?!" Natsu asked desperately. He probably didn't want to be stuck in a girl's body for the rest of his life.

Makarov stroked his moustache. "Hm…there is but it's a very old magic. And when it comes to something that old…I have no idea!" Lucy knew that he was doing this on purpose, to see them squirm and despair. The old man was devious, she would give him that. Makarov grinned as he started walking away. "Well, in any case, I wish you luck." And with that, he disappeared, leaving everyone at a loss for what to do.

"Natsu-san," Lucy said looking at herself. "Could you perhaps teleport around town and see if Levy-san is returning back from her job? I think her assistance would be needed."

Natsu nodded until he realised that he didn't know how he was supposed to do that. Lucy nearly slapped her forehead. Of course. How could she forget? Even if Natsu had access to her powers, that didn't mean he knew how to utilise them. This was most likely the case with everyone else who had swapped.

From this exchange, Happy received an idea. "Oh I know! I'll trying requipping!" he exclaimed as he focused on the magic inside him and pictured a cool armour to put on.

Erza frantically jumped up and down in an attempt to stop him but her efforts were fruitless as in her current state, she was considerably weaker and shorter than Happy.

Everyone watched with baited breath as Happy performed Erza's trademark requip magic. When the glow disappeared, 'Erza' was standing curiously inspecting her new outfit which was a strange mixture of a traditional school swimsuit and beachwear. Lucy was pretty sure that the real Erza inside Happy was on the brink of fainting then and there.

"Ooh! Now it's my turn!" Ria said as she stepped up. She imitated Gray's pose when he casted spells and shouted "Ice make floor!" but instead of the floor being coated with ice, bits of icicles flew in all directions. Thankfully, everyone was able to dodge them and no one was hurt. Lucy advised Ria that maybe trying to use Gray's magic wasn't such a good idea. At the side, Gray grumbled something about him not being able to travel anywhere at a decent pace without being carried around.

"Lucy! Try using Natsu's magic!" Happy urged.

Lucy shook her head. "Unless you don't mind the building burning down in five minutes flat, I don't think that's such a great idea."

"Lucy's right," Happy's voice called out. Everyone glanced up to see Erza using Happy's magic and flying around everywhere. Anyone with half decent eyes could see that Erza was clearly enjoying herself.

"Can I also point out the fact that at this rate, we won't even be able complete our jobs properly. We'll be all over the place," Lucy pointed out. This stopped everyone in their tracks.

Mass panic ensued.

"Damn! You're right!"

"Ice make-"

"Ria, stop!"

"Requip-"

"Don't even think about it!"

"Ria! How the hell do you fly around without wings?! Damn this is so hard!"

"Why isn't the silvery stuff coming out from my hands?! How do I get the keys out? How do I teleport? But wow, I feel so much stronger. And why's my eyes still stinging?!"

"Nooo! I don't have wings anymore!"

"How am I to fight without my weapons and armours?!"

And so, it was another normal day in Fairy Tail.

* * *

**And they lived happily ever after... Just joking. **

**In case anyone wants to know how it gets resolved, which I won't put in the story, Levy comes back from her mission with her team and works out the spell to restore everyone back to their own bodies...just few seconds away from the time limit. In the anime, they have an accident with the spell in which the whole guild ends up switching bodies but for the sake of being simple, I'm going to say that she succeeded at first try and everyone is at peace. **


	8. Trigger cause

**Finally the Phantom arc! As you may know, Lucy's dad is dead in this story so I've taken some liberties with the reasons behind Phantom targeting Lucy. This mainly involves Lucy's past which as you know, I have DRASTICALLY changed. But the events that happen won't change much except towards the end. And finally, this will be the arc where you get to find out Lucy's FULL story and see how she became the person she is now. Oohh. **

**Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

"_Erza-san! Please wait!" a thirteen years old Lucy called out, chasing after a red haired woman who looked to be in her twenties. _

_Erza clicked her tongue in annoyance. "I said no! How many times do I have to say it until it gets through your thick head?!" She quickened her pace considerably. Lucy was not deterred as she persistently followed the redhead, barely keeping up with the intense speed. _

"_I won't give up until you agree!" Lucy replied. Erza suddenly stopped and swivelled around. Lucy was just about able to stop in time to prevent herself from crashing into the redhead. _

_Erza scowled, the expression twisting up her features. "Look brat, I don't know why you have such an obsession with becoming stronger but whatever the reason is, you've come to the wrong person. Don't let me repeat myself: I'm. Not. Going. To. Train. You." _

_Lucy shook her head stubbornly. "No way. I don't know what's going on, where I am and what the hell you did to me but I feel a lot stronger physically. I feel as if I can lift three grown men at a time and I was able to keep up with your ridiculous speed walk without even running out of breath. Whatever this is, I don't care. I want to…no I _need _to get stronger," she almost whispered that last part. _

_Erza regarded Lucy with a mild look of surprise. She then stared into Lucy's eyes and in there she saw determination and a raw desire for power to protect. Lucy stared back unflinchingly and steeled her gaze to show just how serious she was. _

_After a long pause, Erza heaved a big sigh and ran a hand through her messy red hair. "You know what, kid? Fine. You've been persistently following me around for two weeks and frankly, I'm getting fucking sick of it. So fine, I'll train you BUT only in two conditions: one, you don't bitch or moan a single breath about my training no matter how much you feel like you're dying. And two, if you do bitch or moan even once, I'm kicking you out and you're to never come to me ever again. You got that?" _

_Lucy's eyes immediately lit up. Without a moment of hesitation, she nodded enthusiastically with a determined smile. "Yes sir!" she shouted with a salute and a wide grin. _

_Erza narrowed her eyes at the blonde. "You're a cheeky little shit, aren't you? I'll soon beat that out of you. Oh and I'm not a fucking dude so don't call me that."_

"_Then what should I call you?" Lucy asked. _

_Erza curled her lips into what could be identified as a hint of a smile. "I guess 'Shishou' wouldn't be a bad start."_

"_Okay, Shishou. When do we start training?" _

_The redhead raised her brows. "Wow, kid, calm your horses. I'm already regretting in accepting you as my student." When she saw Lucy slumping in disappointment, she sighed. "Come on, brat. Follow me to my place and we can start your training as soon as I'm ready."_

_With that, Erza turned around and started to walk away. Lucy stood in her place staring after her. This Erza looked almost identical to her Erza in Earth, except for the messy hair. Despite their same appearance, their personalities seemed to be night and day. Her eyes saddened as she thought about the redheaded wizard. However before she could think about it any further, she was snapped out of her thoughts by Erza's voice. _

"_You better hurry and keep up or I'm gonna leave you behind!" _

_Lucy shook her head to get rid of her depressing thoughts. Now wasn't the time to lament her mistakes. She needed to get stronger and more powerful. She would find her Erza again one day but for now, she needed to become much, much stronger if she wanted to protect her family as well as the one she loved the most. _

"_Coming, Shishou!" she yelled as she ran to catch up with her new teacher. _

000

Lucy woke up with sweat running down her forehead. She looked around and found that she was still sitting in her chair as she had been an hour ago when she had fallen asleep. She ran a hand through her hair with a sigh and wiped away the sheen of sweat on her forehead. She thought back to her dream. Why the hell was she having the dream now, of all times? She was convinced that she had long since stopped dreaming but now it came back to haunt her like a plague.

The memory was still vivid in her mind, as if it had occurred only the day before. The dream itself was far from unpleasant but something about the timing felt off. Her gut told her that this was a sign of something to come. Something not necessarily good. Maybe she was just being paranoid. She truly hoped that was the case.

Lucy got up and stretched, making sure that her body was loose and well warmed up. She then proceeded to complete her usual sets of warm ups that she did every morning and evening and any other times that she was free. First, she did five hundred push ups with her right hand only, five hundred with her left hand only and finally, a thousand push ups with both hands. Next she completed a thousand sit ups, making sure to twist her body to both sides every twenty times. Then she did five hundred star jumps and five hundred burpees. Finally, she went through some light kicking and punching exercises to keep her arms and legs working.

Once she was done, Lucy gently placed a sleeping Ria in her pocket and made her way to the guild.

"Good morning Erza-san, Mirajane-san," Lucy greeted as she walked up to the two wizards who were sitting by the counter and chatting lightly. Ria, who had woken up during their quick journey between Fairy Hills to the guild, added in her own enthusiastic 'Hi!'

"Good morning Lucy! Hello Ria! You two are later than usual today," Mirajane said as she carried out her duties of wiping the glass. At her comment, Lucy realized that she was indeed at least an hour later than she normally was. She must have been caught up with her thinking.

"Good morning Lucy. You look energetic," Erza commented as she took a bite from her strawberry cake.

Lucy grinned broadly at the redhead. "I _feel _energetic. In fact, I feel like knocking down a building or two."

Mirajane laughed nervously. "I don't mind as long as it's not this building."

Lucy merely smiled as she took a seat next to Erza. She watched the requip wizard from the corner of her eyes and allowed her mind to drift back to her dream. She almost laughed out loud at how completely opposite the two Erzas were. Her Shishou had been a woman with a sharp tongue, never hesitating to express her distaste or lash out with criticisms. She had been a generally unmotivated person who hated socialising and being friendly to people she didn't know. Her Shishou had never bothered herself with the problems of others and she had been an extremely private person. In contrast to this, the Erza she knew in Earthland and Earth were also blunt but in an honest way. They were kind to others and were very determined to do everything to the best of their abilities.

She respected her Shishou almost more than anyone but in the end, the only one she would ever be in love with was the Erza who was kind, strong and looked out for her family.

"Lucy!"

The blonde wizard blinked as she was snapped out of her thoughts. She looked at Mirajane apologetically. "I'm sorry Mirajane-san. What did you say?"

"I asked whether you were going on a job today or not," Mirajane said, giving Lucy an understanding smile.

Lucy scratched her head, trying to work out what the meaning behind the smile was. "I'm not too sure. I think I will. What do you say, Erza-san?" she asked, turning towards Erza.

"I don't see why not," Erza said as she finished off her plate for once in peace. "I don't have anything planned for today."

Just then, Natsu jogged over to them from his table along with Happy. "Oi! Did I hear something about a mission?" he asked as he settled into the seat next to Lucy.

Lucy sighed at his lack of tact. Trust him to ruin her chances of going on a mission with Erza alone for the first time in a while. Despite her mild annoyance, she nonetheless replied, "We were thinking of going on a mission. Would you like to come, Natsu-san?"

Natsu grinned widely. "Sure! I was getting really bored anyway. Isn't that right, Happy?"

"Aye! Natsu couldn't keep still ever since he woke up," Happy said.

Ria replied, "That's just how he usually is."

Erza got up from her seat and started walking towards the request board. "In that case, we should call Gray as well. That will be the four of us again," Erza said. She called Gray over to them and explained the situation. Gray immediately agreed since he too had been feeling restless for a while. They stood in a group and examined the board. In the end after weighing up pros and cons of all sorts of jobs, they decided on a simple one where the client had requested four substitute waiters or waitresses for a family restaurant.

"What, no! I wanna beat some people up," Natsu complained.

"Natsu, this is the only job that's not far away. It's just outside Magnolia and the reward is decent. Stop complaining," Erza said. Lucy nodded in agreement although she was also slightly disappointed that no one was going to be beaten up. It was obvious that Gray also harboured similar sentiments but they all remained silent in fear of Erza.

"Alright, Lucy! Teleport us there!" Natsu said. He was obviously trying to avoid the inevitable train ride there. Lucy frowned, feeling conflicted. On one hand, she felt bad for Natsu and wanted to help but on the other hand, she wanted to have a long journey with Erza and talk to her.

In the end, it was the redhead who made the decision for her. "Let Lucy rest. We can't always have her teleport us to places and since this isn't an emergency, there is no need to rush. We're going to the train station. Come on," Erza said as she brought out her ridiculously excessive amount of luggage. Natsu nodded silently but his face paled. Lucy could see Gray smirking from the corner of her eyes. She felt bad for Natsu but since it was decided already, she wasn't going to waste her chance.

Throughout the whole journey to the client's restaurant, Lucy chatted with Erza. She was surprised to find that she was learning new things about the girl despite technically having known her for at least seven years. But then again, Lucy reminded herself that Erza Scarlet from Earthland was not the same person as the Erza Scarlet from Earth.

"Did you meet any other Erzas during your travel?" Erza asked during one of their conversations.

Lucy smiled as she thought back to the different Erzas she had encountered while she was hopping from one dimension to another. She remembered how each had their own personality interests. It had been an interesting experience for Lucy, to say the least. However, as she answered, her mind focused on one in particular.

"I've met many different Erza-sans actually. The one I spent the longest time with was called Erza Arkot. I trained under her guidance for a year before leaving the world," Lucy said as she thought back to the dream she had early in the morning.

"How was she like?" Erza asked curiously.

Lucy quirked her lips into a small smile. "She was kind of the opposite of you. She always swore and called me 'kid' of 'brat'. She was harsh and unsympathetic but I believed that she had her caring side. Although she was intimidating at first glance, if you got to know her, she really was just an awkward person who didn't know how to be friendly. I think I got my awkward side from her..." Lucy drifted off as she reminisced about the past.

Erza gave her a look of interest. "You seem quite fond of her. What made you leave?" At this, Lucy fell silent.

The requip wizard noticed the change in mood immediately. She smiled at Lucy kindly and said, "You don't have to answer that question if is painful for you but you can confide in me anytime you're ready to tell. Everyone in Fairy Tail regards you as part of their family so you can always be sure that we'll support you no matter what."

Lucy gulped as an intense feeling of warmth flooded her heart and she looked away to hide her blush. How long had it been since she had seen that familiar smile and the gentle reassuring tone directed at her? Far too long.

Once she had her blush under control, she turned back to face Erza with a soft smile of her own. "Thank you Erza-san. You have no idea how much that means to me."

Finally, the nagging feeling of dread that had weighed heavily on her since her dream lifted itself off her shoulders. She allowed herself to be caught up in the fight between Natsu and Gray and watched with a smile as Ria and Happy conversed about the pros and cons of fish and dairy products.

000

"Looks like we destroyed a building yet again," Ria commented as they walked along the streets of Magnolia the next morning.

"Yeah, thanks to Natsu," Gray sneered.

Natsu sneered back. "Don't talk as if you've done nothing wrong, droopy eyes!"

"I'm not the one who broke nearly all the plates and set the restaurant on fire, squinty eyes!"

"That's just how Natsu is," Happy said.

Erza pulled the two boys apart. "Stop this! It was my fault for not keeping an eye on Natsu and therefore endangering everyone's lives! Someone please hit me!"

No one actually made a move to do so as they weren't sure how she would react if someone did indeed hit her. Lucy sighed as she though back to the job. Needless to say, it had gone disastrously, which was why they had been kicked out after two hours. They had started out fine; taking orders, delivering the dishes and giving out the bills. That was until a little girl along with her parents had walked in, asking for Natsu to show her something 'cool'. Natsu, being the kind of person he was, accepted immediately and started a small fire display which was fine until Gray came along and made it a competition to see who could entertain the girl more.

In the next twenty minutes while Erza and Lucy was doing their jobs, Natsu and Gray ignored all their duties and proceeded to completely trash the restaurant with fire and ice. Erza, who had been taking the brunt of their attacks, finally snapped and joined the fray with swords in each hand and Lucy had quietly watched the disaster unfold at the side-line. The only bad thing she had done was beating a guy up for leering at Erza but he had deserved every bit of it. However, the manager would hear none of it and had kicked all four of them out along with a repair bill.

"At least we weren't bored," Lucy said dryly.

"Master's going to faint when he finds out the amount he has to pay in order to repair the restaurant," Ria added.

"And we might even have to do _that _all over again," Happy shuddered. Everyone fell silent at this.

It was during this silence that they heard the hushed whisperings of the people passing by.

"_It's Fairy Tail's wizards…"_

"_I guess they don't know yet."_

"_Poor things…" _

"We're drawing an unusual amount of attention," Gray said. Lucy narrowed her eyes when she heard some of the comments. She had no doubt that Natsu had also heard since he had a very good hearing. Sure enough, he was frowning in concern. What had happened to Fairy Tail while they were away?

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Happy said.

Erza studied the people who were looking at them with a gaze of pity. "Frightened?" Erza guessed. She stopped short when she caught sight of the silhouette of their guild building. Long cylindrical poles were sticking out of the building and it gave off an ominous atmosphere.

She wasted no time in teleporting to the guild, her ears deaf to the calls of her teammates. She regarded the battered building with murderous anger. "What the _fuck _is going on here?!" Lucy snarled as her mind immediately created the worst case scenarios. Her eyes momentarily flashed silver as rage took over her senses and flashes of broken Fairy Tail members appeared before her mind's eye. If any of her family was hurt, she was going to find out the culprit and slowly torture them to death and bring them back to life to do it all over again. She was just about to rush into the building when a familiar voice stopped her.

"Phantom…" She slowly turned to find Mirajane standing behind her with trembling hands. Seeing her friend safe and void of harm, Lucy felt a fraction of her rage fading away. She took a deep breath to control her emotions and her eyes turned back to her usual brown.

Just then, Natsu, Gray, Erza , came running towards the guild with Happy and Ria flying beside them. Ria flew straight towards Lucy and gave her a worried look. Lucy attempted to reassure her friend with a stiff nod. Everyone's eyes widened in shock as they took in the state of their guild.

"Our guild has been…" Natsu started with his shoulder shaking in rage. "Our guild has been…!"

"What's going on?" Erza asked Mirajane, being the calmest out the four, along with Gray.

"It's Phatom," Mirajane repeated in a small voice. "I hate to say this but they got us."

"Is anyone hurt?" Lucy asked in a low voice. Everyone could tell that her anger was barely contained. No one other than Ria had seen the wizard so angry before and if the situation wasn't so serious, they would have teased her for being so similar to Natsu in that aspect.

Mirajane shook her head. "No, thankfully, they attacked in the middle of the night so no one was hurt." Lucy calmed down considerably at this. She was still angry but now that everyone's safety was confirmed, the emotion clouding her rational thought finally cleared.

They all followed Mirajane in silence. As they entered the building, Lucy had to clench her fists to restrain herself from marching to Phantom and punching someone hard in the face. The inside of the guild was in a horrible state with tables and chairs lying around in splinters and large metal poles everywhere. The request board was in a similar state to the chairs and she couldn't even recognise the bar anymore. All their precious memories trashed, just in a matter of seconds. They would pay Phantom back but not in that very moment. See had to see with her own eyes that no one was harmed. They were led into Fairy Tail's first basement floor where Lucy was relieved to see everyone sitting in makes-shift tables and drinking in silence. Although the mood was sombre and the usual rowdy chatter was absent, Lucy was happy that no one seemed to be physically harmed.

"Yo! Welcome back!" Makarov greeted them as they approached. His face was flushed with the amount of beer he was drinking and he sported a goofy grin.

"We have returned," Erza replied calmly.

Lucy gritted her teeth. "Master! Why are you not retaliating against this direct attack to our guild?"

Natsu stepped forward. "Yeah! Lucy's right. What are you just sitting around here for, gramps?!"

Makarov ignored the two and instead addressed Gray. "So? How was the job?"

Gray clenched his jaw and remained silent. They had planned to break the news of their disastrous job as soon as they came back but seeing how serious the situation was, he didn't feel like telling the Master about their job.

In Gray's silence, Erza added, "Master! Don't you understand the situation we are in?"

Makarov chuckled. "Now, now. Calm down. It's not something to get so riled up about." He took a gulp of his beer. "Phantom? Ha! They're nothing but a bunch of half-wits. There's no need for us to bother with them."

Natsu smashed his fist into a nearby wall. "That ain't right! I'm not going to be satisfied until I crush these guys!" Lucy silently agreed with him and she nodded to show her support.

"Master, I agree with Natsu-san. If we don't teach them a lesson now, there is no guarantee that no one is going to be hurt later on," Lucy said firmly.

Master lowered his mug. "This discussion is over," he stated sternly. "We'll take job offers here until the upstairs is repaired." With that, he jumped off from the box he was sitting on and ran off.

Natsu slowly unclenched his fists. "How are you okay with this, gramps?" he asked in a low voice.

Mirajane sent him a look of understanding. "Natsu, this is just as hard for Master, you know. But outright conflicts between guilds are forbidden by the council."

"But they're the one who attacked first!" Natsu yelled in protest.

"That's not the problem here…"

Erza sighed. "If that's how the Master feels, there is nothing we can do."

Lucy slumped as she realised the truth in Erza's words. As much as she wanted revenge against Phantom Lord, she didn't want to get Fairy Tail into trouble with the council yet again.

000

The first thing she saw when she entered her room was Natsu, Gray, Erza and Happy lounging around drinking tea and eating snacks.

"We just never get some privacy," Ria muttered.

"I thought boys weren't allowed in the girls' dormitory," Lucy said to Erza. She decided not to mention that time Natsu had climbed through her window.

Erza sipped her tea. "The incident with Phantom means that they've come to town which means they've probably looked up where we live."

"So that's why Mira-chan said it would be safer to stay in groups," Gray finished.

Erza nodded. "And that's why I'm allowing Natsu and Gray to stay in your room for the time being. I joined since even I wouldn't have been comfortable staying with just Natsu and Gray." Lucy nodded as she settled into the chair opposite Erza.

"I guess that makes sense. If I was left alone and a member of Phantom had attacked, I wouldn't have been able to restrain myself from breaking a few limbs."

"I don't think that's what she had in mind when she told you to stay in groups," Happy said with a sweatdrop.

Ria shrugged. "But it's a good thing. Lucy can really hurt someone when she puts her mind to it. Thank goodness she doesn't a lot of the time."

"In any case," Erza said as she pointedly stared at the rest. "You all smell like sweat. We're sleeping in the same room so at least take a bath."

"No way, can't be bothered," Natsu said, his mouth stuffed with cookies.

"But I'm sleepy…" Gray complained from Lucy's bed. It was a good thing Lucy hardly ever slept in her bed. She didn't think sleeping in Gray's sweat would be a great experience.

"I suppose it can't be helped. Should we take a bath together like the old times?" Erza teased as she grabbed a slightly blushing Natsu and Gray. Lucy's head immediately shot up at this.

"I want to join!" she shouted eagerly.

Natsu and Gray gave her a weird look as they broke free from Erza's grasp. "Nobody's having a shower together!" Gray said as he settled into Lucy's bed once more and closed his eyes, attempting to sleep. Erza grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom.

"I'll take a bath first," Erza announced as she closed the bathroom door behind her. As she heard the water running, Lucy started her usual excise routine. She was just about to start another round of a thousand push ups when Erza walked out wrapped in a towel. Lucy's arms almost gave out underneath her as she stared. She quickly looked away with a blush and attempted to continue her exercise casually. Ria laughed out loud when she saw but quickly clamped her mouth shut when Erza gave her a curious look.

"Ah…that was a nice bath," Erza sighed in contentment.

Lucy cleared her throat. "Um, Erza-san…aren't you going to put on some clothes?" she asked awkwardly.

Erza looked down at the towel that barely covered the essential parts of her body. "Oh sorry." She quickly requipped into a pair of purple Heart Kreuz brand pyjamas. They stayed in silence as Lucy finished off her sit ups. Natsu sat in the corner of the room with a brooding face and Gray lay still in Lucy's bed, most likely asleep. Happy was munching on a fish and Ria was nibbling on a slice of cheese.

"I wonder why Phantom suddenly attacked," Lucy suddenly spoke. This particular question had been bugging her ever since she had found out about the attack. Once she was able to think clearly without feeling rage overshadowing everything else, this was the first question that popped to mind. She knew that Fairy Tail and Phantom had always been in a bad relationship but if nothing had happened between them so far, why now? And if they were going to attack, why do it when no one is there?

"Who knows? We've had smaller skirmishes between us but never such a direct attack," Erza replied.

"Things will probably die down soon," Ria said.

Somehow, Lucy had a feeling that things were only heading for the worse.

000

"_Lucy Heartfillia!" a shrill voice called out. Lucy winced as she turned around to face a girl with long purple hair and dark blue eyes. _

"_Yes, Evangeline-san?" she answered politely. _

"_I challenge you to a duel!" Evangeline declared, pointing a slim finger at the blonde wizard. _

_Lucy sighed. "You know that Shishou has forbidden me to fight with anyone within the castle without her permission, Evangeline-san." _

_Evangeline let out a frustrated shout. Even she knew better than to defy the orders of Mistress Arkot who was the owner of the castle. Lucy inspected the purple haired girl. She had met Evangeline few days ago when the owner of a nearby castle had come on a visit. If she recalled, the owner's name was… Mirajane Hawkes. Evangeline had apparently tagged along as her bodyguard and ever since her fellow bodyguard had been beaten in a mock fight with Lucy on the first day, Evangeline had relentlessly followed her around asking for a duel. _

"_Is there anything more I can do for you?" Lucy asked, tilting her head. _

_Evangeline huffed out a breath. "I was asked to bring you Lady Arkot and Mistress Hawkes. They would like to speak with you." _

_Lucy nodded. "I understand. Please lead the way, Evangeline-san." _

_They walked towards the direction of the dining hall. Lucy noticed that Evangeline was walking rather stiffly. Before she could regret her decision, she reached out her hand and put it on Evangeline's shoulder. The girl immediately reacted and grabbed Lucy's hand in a vice grip. When she realised who it was, she let go with a scowl. _

"_What is it?" Evangeline bit out. _

_Lucy raised her brows at the harsh tone. "I was just wondering if there was anything on your mind. I noticed that you were walking rather stiffly. And the fact that you were surprised when I put my hand on your shoulder means that you were distracted," she said. _

_Evangeline sneered. "I don't see how that's any of your business." _

"_I was just concerned for you," Lucy said with a frown. _

_A tense silence stretched between them until Evangeline sighed in defeat. _

"_I'm sorry I was harsh to you. It's just, when I said that Lady Arkot and Mistress Hawkes wanted to speak to you, I meant both of us. And I have a feeling that Mistress Hawkes is about to fire me as her body guard." _

"_What makes you so sure?"_

"_As you saw earlier in your duel with Thomas, not many of the body guards are particularly talented in what they do. In Thomas' case, he makes up his lack of skills with his crazy devotion for Mistress Hawkes. In all honesty, Mistresses Hawkes doesn't even need body guards but she employs people like us who can't do much except to fight so that we can support our family with the money we earn. Earlier, she jested that she should replace all the body guards with stronger ones but now I'm afraid that it wasn't a jest," Evangeline admitted with a worried frown. _

"_Are you worried that you won't be able to earn money for your family?" Lucy asked. _

_Evangeline shook her head. "No. I don't have a family so I was taken in by Mistresses Hawkes few years ago. She has been nothing but kind to me and the others. I'm just worried that she'll employ someone who is not loyal to her. What if they end up betraying her? That why I challenged you to prove my worth. I would be loyal to the end and protect her with my life if I must." _

_Lucy smiled. She and Evangeline were more similar that she had thought. "Don't worry Evangeline-san. If you're as devoted as you say, I'm sure Hawkes-san has no reason to employ someone else. I think she's very lucky to have someone like you protecting her," Lucy reassured. _

_Evangeline's expressions softened as she smiled back at Lucy. "Thank you. I think I just needed to hear that from someone. You're nicer than you look." _

"_Why thank you," Lucy replied dryly. "I get that a lot." _

_Evangeline laughed heartily. "I think I just found myself a good friend." _

_Lucy grinned back. "I think I did too." _

000

Lucy looked around the Magnolia Southgate Park. She had heard some whispers about something related to Fairy Tail from the people around her during her walk to the guild. With a deep sense of dread settling in the pit of her stomach, she had quickly teleported herself to the park only to find a large crowd surrounding a particular tree in the middle of the park. She pushed her way through the crowd until she was standing directly in front of the tree.

Her eyes darkened in anger when she saw team shadow gear battered and bruised nailed to the tree. On Levy's stomach, the Phantom's insignia was drawn messily with black ink.

"Phantom…" came an enraged voice next to her. It was Natsu who looked just as angry as she felt. Erza and Gray stood next to him, looking up at their guild mate. Happy stood in shock and Ria let out a small cry of anger.

"_Somebody get them down from there!" _came a voice from the crowd. _No, you dipshit! _Lucy thought viciously with deep sarcasm and anger.

"_But look at that mark, we'd better stay clear…" _came another voice form the crowd. In that moment, she seriously wanted to go and murder each and every single member of Phantom. She would teach them not to harm her family. Just then, Master appeared with a grave expression. The crowd immediately fell silent at the heavy atmosphere.

"Master…" Erza said with a strained voice.

"I can stand being reduced to a run-down beer hall…but no parent can stand idle while the blood of his children is being spilled!" Makarov said, his voice slowly rising in anger. "This is war!"

A cruel smirk took over Lucy's face. Just what she wanted. She would crush every one of them.

_Hang in there, Levy, Droy, Jet. After this is over, we can all have a party and Levy, you can borrow as many books as you like. Until then, stay safe. _

000

"_What do you think powers are for?" a ten years old Erza asked to an eight years old Lucy. _

_Lucy tilted her head, wondering what had brought on the question. Nonetheless, she answered, "Isn't it to beat the bad guys with?" _

_Erza smiled. "You're not wrong. It is partly to beat the bad guys with but therein lies another question. Who are the bad guys Lucy?" _

_Lucy frowned. What kind of question was that? "That easy. They're the ones who hurt others for their own need." She was reciting a quote from one of her favourite books about a dashing hero of justice who vanquished evil villains to rescue the people in need. Lucy had always aspired to be a strong protector, just like the hero from her books. _

"_What if they were hurt too and they're hurting others because they didn't want to hurt anymore? I beat bad guys to fulfil a mission. So technically, I'm hurting them for my own need. Does that make me a bad guy too?" Erza asked. _

_Lucy immediately answered. "No way! Erza-san can't be a bad guy. Because you're protecting other people so you're a good person." She nodded to herself, satisfied with her reply. _

"_But even bad guys have things they're protecting. So doesn't that make them good guys too?" _

_Lucy's confidence faltered at that. She didn't know how to answer this question. She frowned as her brain thought over what the redhead had said. In the end, she only managed to confuse herself. _

_Erza ruffled Lucy's hair. "I'm not trying to confuse you Lucy and I'm not saying you're wrong. I know it's a bit early for you to understand but you need to know that this world isn't just about black and white and that there are grey areas. So when you beat up a' bad guy' with your powers, you need to keep in mind that all lives are precious and that you can't just throw lives away based on the fact that they're a 'bad guy'."_

"_Black? White? Grey?" Lucy repeated in a daze. _

"_I guess it really was too early for you," Erza said with a small laugh. "Don't worry. You'll understand what I mean when you grow up." _

_Lucy nodded slowly. She had no idea what Erza was saying but she did know that this was important to the requip wizard. She stored the conversation at the back of her mind so that she'll understand when she's older. She grinned up at Erza. "I don't really understand but it doesn't matter if I'm not a bad guy right? I'll never be a bad guy because I won't hurt others because that'll hurt you and I'll never hurt you. I promise I'll always protect you and everyone else." _

_Erza chuckled. "Yeah, I know you will. So it's a promise?" _

"_Yup! It's a promise."_

* * *

**Finally, some insight to her past! There will be more next chapter! Stay tuned. **


End file.
